Wealthy can also use proxy corporations and NGOs to circumvent corruption laws to subvert democracy. This kind of subversion is quite hard to cope up with, since the dirty business is conducted with peripheral personas or organizations. This makes it harder to link them to the corrupt politicians. Read the methods they employ for this kind of subversion here.
There is a simple solution to Wealth corrupting democracy. And it has to do with wealth. Read what can be done here.
Offering corporate posts is a way in which Wealthy can subvert democracy and politics. And not only through politicians or leaders - bureaucrats too. Do something they want very much, and land a multi-million dollar post after resigning. Which is something that repeated in the recent years a lot of times. Read what else they do here.
Even if there aren't elections in horizon, party donations still happen, and they keep the cycle going. Parties keep doing propaganda, filter candidates, fund friendly groups. This amplifies the ways through which Wealth subverts democracy in an ongoing basis. Read how they do it here.
Private Education acts as a tool to condition and indoctrinate the children - in many ways too. From constantly reinforcing the 'desirable' philosophy to making 'undesirable philosophy' unreachable, from filtering independent thinking students to constantly reinforcing ideas through media repetition. Read who does that and why here.
Those who own the media hold the keys to what you see, and what you don't. They can show you what they want you to see, and keep anything they don't want hidden - they can even make political candidates disappear from public view. Read how media does this, and what else they do here.
Campaign Donations are the simplest, most obvious and most direct way Wealthy corrupt democracy. No money, no election. Either you have the money, or you need to get backing from someone who has the money. When that's how elections work, naturally the one with the most gold makes the rule.
Imagine that you are a budding politician running for office. Election is coming up. You need to run a campaign. The smallest campaign for simplest political office costs around a million dollars or more. What are you going to do ? You are going to spend that money... Otherwise, no one will hear your name, no one will hear what you are saying about issues, and actually even the ones who know you will think that you don't have a chance to win. This or that way, you are going to spend that money .... But how ?
