plutocracy

The term plutocracy is generally used as a pejorative to describe or warn against an undesirable condition.{{cite book|last1= Fiske|first1= Edward B.

|last2 = Mallison

|first2 = Jane

|last3 = Hatcher

|first3 = Dave

|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=m74oSMXpnx8C

|quote = [...] Plutocracy and plutocrat are almost always used in a pejorative or negative sense.

|title= Fiske 250 words every high school freshman needs to know|year= 2009 |publisher= Sourcebooks|location= Naperville, Ill.|isbn= 9781402260797 |page= 50}}{{cite book|editor-last=Coates|editor-first=Colin M. |title= Majesty in Canada: essays on the role of royalty|year= 2006|publisher= Dundurn|location= Toronto|isbn= 978-1550025866 |pages= 119}} Throughout history, political thinkers and philosophers have condemned plutocrats for ignoring their social responsibilities, using their power to serve their own purposes and thereby increasing poverty and nurturing class conflict and corrupting societies with greed and hedonism.{{failed verification|reason=Neither source makes these claims and the first isn't even about plutocracy|date=January 2022}}{{cite book|first1= Peter|last1= Viereck|title=Conservative thinkers: from John Adams to Winston Churchill|year=2006|publisher=Transaction Publishers |location= New Brunswick, New Jersey|isbn= 978-1412805261|pages= [https://archive.org/details/conservativethin00pete/page/19 19–68]|url=https://archive.org/details/conservativethin00pete/page/19}}{{cite book|first=Alexis |last=de Tocqueville |editor-first= Roger|editor-last= Boesche|editor-link= Roger Boesche|translator-last= Toupin|translator-first= James |title=Selected letters on politics and society|year=1985|publisher=University of California Press|location= Berkeley |isbn= 978-0520057517|pages=197–198}}

"Dollarocracy", an anglicised adaptation of the word "plutocracy", may refer to "a specifically American version of plutocracy".

{{cite book

|last1 = Muller

|first1 = Denis

|date = 9 August 2021

|chapter = Democracy Under Strain

|title = Journalism and the Future of Democracy

|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Krg8EAAAQBAJ

|publication-place = Cham, Zug

|publisher = Springer Nature

|pages = 10–11

|isbn = 9783030767617

|access-date = 13 July 2024

|quote = The position of the United States as a 'weak democracy' had degenerated into what McChesney and his colleague John Nichols called a 'dollarocracy', 'a specifically American version of plutocracy' in which corporate lobbying had corrupted Congressional processes.

}}

Historic examples of plutocracies include the Roman Empire; some city-states in Ancient Greece; the civilization of Carthage; the Italian merchant city-states of Venice, Florence and Genoa; the Dutch Republic; and the pre-World War II Empire of Japan (the zaibatsu). According to Noam Chomsky and Jimmy Carter, the modern United States resembles a plutocracy though with democratic forms.{{cite news |url=http://www.salon.com/2015/10/06/noam_chomsky_america_is_a_plutocracy_masquerading_as_a_democracy_partner/ |first=Noam |last=Chomsky |author-link=Noam Chomsky |title=America is a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy |date=6 October 2015 |newspaper=Salon |access-date=13 Feb 2015}}{{cite news |url=http://www.supersoul.tv/supersoul-sunday/jimmy-carter-on-whether-he-could-be-president-today-absolutely-not |first=Jimmy |last=Carter |author-link=Jimmy Carter |title=Jimmy Carter on Whether He Could Be President Today: "Absolutely Not"|date=15 October 2015 |newspaper=supersoul.tv|access-date=13 Feb 2015}} In 2018, Paul Volcker, a former chair of the Federal Reserve, stated he also believed the U.S. to be developing into a plutocracy.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/business/dealbook/paul-volcker-federal-reserve.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur |first=Andrew |last=Sorkin |author-link=Sorkin |title=Paul Volcker, at 91, Sees 'a Hell of a Mess in Every Direction' |date=23 October 2018 |newspaper=New York Times |access-date=28 October 2018}}

One modern, formal example of a plutocracy, according to some critics,{{Cite journal|last1=Atkinson|first1=Rowland|last2=Parker|first2=Simon|last3=Burrows|first3=Roger|date=September 2017|title=Elite Formation, Power and Space in Contemporary London|journal=Theory, Culture & Society|language=en|volume=34|issue=5–6|pages=179–200|doi=10.1177/0263276417717792|issn=0263-2764|doi-access=free}} is the City of London.{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/31/corporation-london-city-medieval |first=George |last=Monbiot |author-link=George Monbiot |title=The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest |date=31 October 2011 |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=1 November 2011}} The City (also called the Square Mile of ancient London, corresponding to the modern financial district, an area of about 2.5 km²) has a unique electoral system for its local administration, separate from the rest of London. More than two-thirds of voters are not residents, but rather representatives of businesses and other bodies that occupy premises in the City, with votes distributed according to their numbers of employees. The principal justification for this arrangement is that most of the services provided by the City of London Corporation are used by the businesses in the City. Around 450,000 non-residents constitute the City's day-time population, far outnumbering the City's 7,000 residents.{{cite news|url=http://www.tribunemagazine.org/2009/02/labour-runs-in-city-of-london-poll-against-%E2%80%98get-rich%E2%80%99-bankers// |title=Labour runs in City of London poll against 'get-rich' bankers |date=12 February 2009 |author=René Lavanchy |work=Tribune |access-date=17 January 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150115021037/http://www.tribunemagazine.org/2009/02/labour-runs-in-city-of-london-poll-against-%E2%80%98get-rich%E2%80%99-bankers// |archive-date=15 January 2015}}

In the political jargon and propaganda of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and the Communist International, Western democratic states were referred to as plutocracies, with the implication being that a small number of extremely wealthy individuals were controlling the countries and holding them to ransom.{{cite web|url=http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/fi/vol02/no02/editors2.htm|title=The Editors: American Labor and the War (February 1941)|work=marxists.org|access-date=28 August 2015}}{{cite book |title=World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, Vol. 1|last1=Blamires |first1=Cyprian |last2=Jackson |first2=Paul |year=2006 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-57607-940-9 |page=522}} Plutocracy replaced democracy and capitalism as the principal fascist term for the U.S. and Great Britain during World War II.{{cite book |title=The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust|last1=Herf|first1=Jeffrey|year=2006 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-02175-4|page=311}} In Nazi Germany, it was often used as a dog whistle term for Jewish people in their antisemitic propaganda. Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, found the term to be particularly favorable, describing it as "the main concept at which the ideological struggle will be aimed".As quoted in Boelcke, Willi A. The Secret Conferences of Dr. Goebbels: October 1939-March 1943, edited by Willi A. Boelcke; trans. Ewald Osers. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970.

{{Further|Income inequality in the United States#Effects on democracy and society}}

{{See also|American upper class|Wealth inequality in the United States}}

File:US federal minimum wage if it had kept pace with productivity. Also, the inflation-adjusted minimum wage.png if it had kept pace with productivity. Also, the real minimum wage.]]

Some modern historians, politicians, and economists argue that the U.S. was effectively plutocratic for at least part of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era periods between the end of the Civil War until the beginning of the Great Depression.{{cite book|last=Pettigrew|first=Richard Franklin|author-link=Richard F. Pettigrew|title=Triumphant Plutocracy: The Story of American Public Life from 1870 to 1920|year=2010|publisher=Nabu Press|isbn=978-1146542746}}{{cite book|last=Calvin Reed|first=John|title=The New Plutocracy|year=1903|publisher=Kessinger Publishing, LLC (2010 reprint)|isbn=978-1120909152}}{{cite book|last= Brinkmeyer|first=Robert H.|title=The fourth ghost: white Southern writers and European fascism, 1930-1950|year=2009|publisher=Louisiana State University Press|location=Baton Rouge|isbn=978-0807133835|pages=331}}{{cite book|last=Allitt|first=Patrick|title=The conservatives: ideas and personalities throughout American history|year=2009|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|isbn=978-0300118940|pages=[https://archive.org/details/conservativeside00alli_0/page/143 143]|url=https://archive.org/details/conservativeside00alli_0/page/143}}{{cite book|editor-last1=Ryan|editor-first1=James G.|editor-last2=Schlup|editor-first2=Leonard|title=Historical dictionary of the Gilded Age|year=2003|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|location=Armonk, N.Y.|isbn=978-0765603319|pages=145}}{{cite book|first1=Peter|last1=Viereck|title=Conservative thinkers: from John Adams to Winston Churchill|year=2006|publisher=Transaction Publishers|location=New Brunswick, New Jersey|isbn=978-1412805261|pages=[https://archive.org/details/conservativethin00pete/page/103 103]|url=https://archive.org/details/conservativethin00pete/page/103}} President Theodore Roosevelt became known as the "trust-buster" for his aggressive use of antitrust law, through which he managed to break up such major combinations as the largest railroad and Standard Oil, the largest oil company.{{cite book|title=American Entrepreneur: The Fascinating Stories of the People Who Defined Business in the United States| publisher=AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn | year = 2009|first=Larry|last = Schweikart}} According to historian David Burton, "When it came to domestic political concerns, TR's bête noire was the plutocracy."{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zMdfna-aocwC&q=theodore+roosevelt+plutocracy&pg=PA104|title=Theodore Roosevelt, American Politician|access-date=28 August 2015|isbn=9780838637272|last1=Burton|first1=David Henry|year=1997|publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press }} In his autobiographical account of taking on monopolistic corporations as president, Roosevelt recounted:

{{blockquote|

...we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.{{cite web|url=http://www.bartleby.com/55/12.html|title=Roosevelt, Theodore. 1913. An Autobiography: XII. The Big Stick and the Square Deal|work=bartleby.com|access-date=28 August 2015}}

}}

The Sherman Antitrust Act had been enacted in 1890, when large industries reaching monopolistic or near-monopolistic levels of market concentration and financial capital increasingly integrating corporations and a handful of very wealthy heads of large corporations began to exert increasing influence over industry, public opinion and politics after the Civil War. Money, according to contemporary progressive and journalist Walter Weyl, was "the mortar of this edifice", with ideological differences among politicians fading and the political realm becoming "a mere branch in a still larger, integrated business. The state, which through the party formally sold favors to the large corporations, became one of their departments."{{cite book|last=Bowman|first=Scott R.|title=The modern corporation and American political thought: law, power, and ideology|year=1996|publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press|location=University Park, Pa.|isbn=978-0271014739|pages=92–103}}

In "The Politics of Plutocracy" section of his book, The Conscience of a Liberal, economist Paul Krugman says plutocracy took hold because of three factors: at that time, the poorest quarter of American residents (African-Americans and non-naturalized immigrants) were ineligible to vote, the wealthy funded the campaigns of politicians they preferred, and vote buying was "feasible, easy and widespread", as were other forms of electoral fraud such as ballot-box stuffing and intimidation of the other party's voters.{{cite book|last=Krugman|first=Paul|title=The conscience of a liberal|year=2009|publisher=Norton|location=New York|isbn=978-0393333138|pages=[https://archive.org/details/conscienceoflib00krug/page/21 21–26]|edition=[Pbk. ed.]|url=https://archive.org/details/conscienceoflib00krug/page/21}}

The U.S. instituted progressive taxation in 1913, but according to Shamus Khan, in the 1970s, elites used their increasing political power to lower their taxes, and today successfully employ what political scientist Jeffrey Winters calls "the income defense industry" to greatly reduce their taxes.Kahn, Shamus (18 September 2012) [https://ideas.time.com/2012/09/18/the-rich-havent-always-hated-taxes/ "The Rich Haven't Always Hated Taxes"] Time Magazine

In 1998, Bob Herbert of The New York Times referred to modern American plutocrats as "The Donor Class"{{cite news |last=Herbert |first=Bob |author-link=Bob Herbert |title=The Donor Class |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/19/opinion/in-america-the-donor-class.html |date=19 July 1998 |work=The New York Times |access-date=10 March 2016 }}{{cite news |last1=Confessore |first1=Nicholas |last2=Cohen |first2=Sarah |last3=Yourish |first3=Karen |title=The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/11/us/politics/2016-presidential-election-super-pac-donors.html |date=10 October 2015 |work=The New York Times |access-date=10 March 2016 }} (list of top (political party) donors){{cite news |last1=Lichtblau |first1=Eric |last2=Confessore |first2=Nicholas |title=From Fracking to Finance, a Torrent of Campaign Cash - Top Donors List |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/us/politics/wealthy-families-presidential-candidates.html#donors-list |date=10 October 2015 |work=The New York Times |access-date=11 March 2016 }} and defined the class, for the first time,{{cite news |last=McCutcheon |first=Chuck |title=Why the 'donor class' matters, especially in the GOP presidential scrum |url=http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Politics-Voices/2014/1226/Why-the-donor-class-matters-especially-in-the-GOP-presidential-scrum |date=26 December 2014 |work="The Christian Science Monitor |access-date=10 March 2016 }} as "a tiny group – just one-quarter of 1 percent of the population – and it is not representative of the rest of the nation. But its money buys plenty of access."

In modern times, the term is sometimes used pejoratively to refer to societies rooted in state-corporate capitalism or which prioritize the accumulation of wealth over other interests.{{cite journal|last=Barker|first=Derek|title=Oligarchy or Elite Democracy? Aristotle and Modern Representative Government|journal=New Political Science|date=2013|volume=35|issue=4|pages=547–566|doi=10.1080/07393148.2013.848701|s2cid=145063601}}{{cite journal|last=Etzioni|first=Amitai|title=Political Corruption in the United States: A Design Draft|journal=Political Science & Politics|date=Jan 2014|volume=47|issue=1|pages=141–144|doi=10.1017/S1049096513001492|doi-broken-date=5 February 2025 |s2cid=155071383}}{{cite journal|last=Westbrook|first=David|title=If Not a Commercial Republic - Political Economy in the United States after Citizens United|journal=Louisville Law Review|date=2011|volume=50|issue=1|pages=35–86|url=http://www.louisvillelawreview.org/sites/louisvillelawreview.org/files/pdfs/printcontent/50/1/Westbrook.pdf|access-date=30 April 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140502000423/http://www.louisvillelawreview.org/sites/louisvillelawreview.org/files/pdfs/printcontent/50/1/Westbrook.pdf|archive-date=2 May 2014|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}[http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-long-dark-shadows-plutocracy/ Full Show: The Long, Dark Shadows of Plutocracy]. Moyers & Company, 28 November 2014. According to Kevin Phillips, author and political strategist to Richard Nixon, the United States is a plutocracy in which there is a "fusion of money and government."[https://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_phillips.html Transcript. Bill Moyers Interviews Kevin Phillips]. NOW with Bill Moyers 4.09.04 | PBS

Chrystia Freeland, author of Plutocrats,{{cite book|first=Chrystia|last=Freeland|author-link=Chrystia Freeland|title=Plutocrats: the rise of the new global super-rich and the fall of everyone else|date=2012|publisher=Penguin|location=New York|isbn=9781594204098|oclc=780480424|url=https://archive.org/details/plutocratsriseof00free}} says that the present trend towards plutocracy occurs because the rich feel that their interests are shared by society:{{cite interview |first=Chrystia|last=Freeland |date=15 October 2012 |url=https://www.npr.org/2012/10/15/162799512/a-startling-gap-between-us-and-them-in-plutocrats |title=A Startling Gap Between Us And Them In 'Plutocrats' |publisher=National Public Radio |access-date=12 April 2023}}See also the Chrystia Freeland interview for the Moyers Book Club (12 October 2012) [http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-plutocracy-rising/ Moyers & Company Full Show: Plutocracy Rising]

{{blockquote

|You don't do this in a kind of chortling, smoking your cigar, conspiratorial thinking way. You do it by persuading yourself that what is in your own personal self-interest is in the interests of everybody else. So you persuade yourself that, actually, government services, things like spending on education, which is what created that social mobility in the first place, need to be cut so that the deficit will shrink, so that your tax bill doesn't go up. And what I really worry about is, there is so much money and so much power at the very top, and the gap between those people at the very top and everybody else is so great, that we are going to see social mobility choked off and society transformed.

}}

When the Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote the 2011 Vanity Fair magazine article entitled "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%", the title and content supported Stiglitz's claim that the U.S. is increasingly ruled by the wealthiest 1%.Stiglitz Joseph E. [http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105# "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%"]. Vanity Fair, May 2011; see also the Democracy Now! interview with Joseph Stiglitz: [http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/7/nobel_economist_joseph_stiglitz_assault_on "Assault on Social Spending, Pro-Rich Tax Cuts Turning U.S. into Nation 'Of the 1 Percent, by the 1 Percent, for the 1 Percent{{'"}}], Democracy Now! Archive, Thursday, 7 April 2011 Some researchers have said the U.S. may be drifting towards a form of oligarchy, as individual citizens have less impact than economic elites and organized interest groups upon public policy.Piketty, Thomas (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Belknap Press. {{ISBN|067443000X}} p. 514: "the risk of a drift towards oligarchy is real and gives little reason for optimism about where the United States is headed." In the U.S. Congress itself, more than half of all members are millionaires.{{Cite web |last=Evers-Hillstrom |first=Karl |date=2020-04-23 |title=Majority of lawmakers in 116th Congress are millionaires |url=https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/majority-of-lawmakers-millionaires/ |access-date=2024-07-10 |website=OpenSecrets}}

A study conducted by political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, which was released in April 2014,{{cite journal |title=Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens |author1=Martin Gilens |author2=Benjamin I. Page |name-list-style=amp |journal=Perspectives on Politics |date=2014 |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=564–581 |doi=10.1017/S1537592714001595 |url=http://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf|doi-access=free }} stated that their "analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts". Gilens and Page do not characterize the U.S. as an "oligarchy" or "plutocracy" per se; however, they do apply the concept of "civil oligarchy" as used by Jeffrey A. WintersWinters, Jeffrey A. "[https://archive.org/details/oligarchy0000wint Oligarchy]" Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 208-254 with respect to the U.S.

The investor, billionaire, and philanthropist Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest people in the world,{{cite web |title=The World's Billionaires |url=https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130403013841/http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/ |archive-date=3 April 2013 |access-date=1 May 2018 |website=forbes.com}} voiced in 2005 and once more in 2006 his view that his class, the "rich class", is waging class warfare on the rest of society. In 2005 Buffet said to CNN: "It's class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn't be."[http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/05/10/buffett/index.html Buffett: 'There are lots of loose nukes around the world'] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160430104340/http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/05/10/buffett/index.html|date=30 April 2016}} CNN.com In a November 2006 interview in The New York Times, Buffett stated that "[t]here's class warfare all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."{{cite news |last=Buffett |first=Warren |date=26 November 2006 |title=In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class is Winning |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170103165340/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html |archive-date=3 January 2017 |newspaper=The New York Times}}

Reasons why a plutocracy develops are complex.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}} In a nation that is experiencing rapid economic growth, income inequality will tend to increase as the rate of return on innovation increases.{{Cite book|last=Piketty|first=Thomas|title=Capital in the Twenty-First Century|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2013|isbn=9781491534649}} In other scenarios, plutocracy may develop when a country is collapsing due to resource depletion as the elites attempt to hoard the diminishing wealth or expand debts to maintain stability, which will tend to enrich creditors and financiers. Economists have also suggested that free market economies tend to drift into monopolies and oligopolies because of the greater efficiency of larger businesses (see economies of scale).

Other nations may become plutocratic through kleptocracy or rent-seeking.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}

• Aristocracy
• Banana republic
• Broligarchy
• Corporatocracy
• Elitism
• Kleptocracy
• Neo-feudalism
• Oligarchy
• Overclass
• Plutonomy
• Timocracy
• Upper class
• Wealth concentration
• Property qualification

{{div col end}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{refbegin}}

• Howard, Milford Wriarson (1895). [https://books.google.com/books?id=-RoPAAAAYAAJ The American plutocracy]. New York: Holland Publishing.
• Norwood, Thomas Manson (1888). [https://books.google.com/books?id=7lYYAAAAYAAJ Plutocracy: or, American white slavery; a politico-social novel]. New York: The American News Company.
• Pettigrew, Richard Franklin (1921). [https://archive.org/details/triumphantpluto00pettgoog Triumphant Plutocracy: The Story of American Public Life from 1870 to 1920]. New York: The Academy Press.
• Reed, John Calvin (1903). [https://books.google.com/books?id=8zIoAAAAYAAJ The New Plutocracy]. New York: Abbey Press.
• Winters, Jeffrey A. (2011). [https://archive.org/details/oligarchy0000wint Oligarchy]. Cambridge University Press

{{refend}}

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{{Corruption}}

{{Extreme wealth}}

{{Political philosophy}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:17th-century neologisms

Category:Oligarchy

Category:Pejorative terms for forms of government

Category:Political philosophy

Category:Social philosophy

Category:Wealth concentration