I'm a little ahead of this chapter, but I am finding the truth in that statement.
While we have the "grasshoppers" pretending to be caring about the "people" and we have the "ants" actually doing something, we are leaving out all those people in the middle. There doesn't seem to be any great clamor from the people for government interference, it only comes from the hangers-on (the group in the bar). Boyle has so many excuses for his worthlessness as does Jim and yet they see themselves as saviors of the world. While reading this I can see Chris Dodd as Boyle and Bill Clinton as Jim. I know Clinton wasn't born into money, yet he doesn't really make hard decisions, he lets someone else do the work and takes the credit.
The same during the Seventies. You had Rohatyn and Palevsky pushing for full socialist industrial planning, but no push from the people. Fortunately, Reagan ended all discussion of the topic in 1980.