JOEL KOTKIN: Rich Trustafarians Want To Tell You How To Live.

One place we can see this is in the cultural sphere. Hollywood, in particular, has always had a weakness for helping its own. Dorothy Parker once noted that “the only ‘ism’ Hollywood cares about is plagiarism.” But increasingly there is another “ism”—nepotism. And the trend can be seen across the the entertainment industry in such families as the Paltrows, Fondas, Douglases, and Smiths. You can see the wheels turning when someone like Jay Z puts his newborn baby’s cries—no doubt a budding rapper—on his songs.

But some of the most obvious places where dynastic power can be seen are on the executive side of the business. In the early years, the big powers were often rough, self-made men such as Jack Warner or Louis B. Mayer. People like David Geffen who worked their way up from the mailroom are increasingly rare. Today the hottest new producers tend to come from the richest classes, such as William Pohlad, son and heir of a Minnesota billionaire; Gigi Pritzker, an heir to the Pritzker fortune; and Megan Ellison, daughter of Oracle Founder Larry Ellison, one of the world’s 10 richest men.

At the same time, the media itself, particularly in its most visible manifestations, is increasingly populated by the children of prominent politicians and by those who come from the ranks of the plutocracy. Middle-class parents may have to grind their teeth and empty their wallets as their kids work in unpaid internships in pricey Gotham, but this is not the fate of the offspring of the Reagans, Bushes, Clintons, McCains, Pelosis, or Kennedys, all of whom have ascended to levels of media power that mere mortals take years to achieve, if ever. If you need a show for millennials, why not hand it over to Ronan Farrow, the offspring of celebrity parents. In my time, generally speaking, the icons of a generation were likely to be outsiders; the “screwed generation” of millennials get to have theirs defined by whose birthright landed them on third base.

But perhaps the biggest long-term impact may come from the nonprofit institutions that the wealthy fund. Nonprofit foundations have been growing rapidly in size and influence since the late ’20s, paralleling the expansion of other parts of the clerisy like the universities and government. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of nonprofits increased 25 percent to more than 1.5 million. Their total employment has also soared: By 2010, 10.7 million people were employed by nonprofits—more than the number of people working in the construction and finance sectors combined—and the category has expanded far more rapidly than the rest of the economy, adding two million jobs since 2002. By 2010, nonprofits accounted for an economy of roughly $780 billion and paid upwards of 9 percent of wages and 10 percent of jobs in the overall economy.

Nonprofits, due to their accumulated wealth, are able to thrive even in tough times, adding jobs even in the worst years of the Great Recession.

The nonprofit sector is ripe for closer regulation.