Plutocracy

A plutocracy (Greek: πλοῦτος, ploutos, 'wealth' + κράτος, kratos, 'power') or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by
people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631.[1] Unlike systems such as democracy,
capitalism, socialism or anarchism, plutocracy is not rooted in an established political philosophy. The concept of plutocracy may be
advocated by the wealthy classes of a society in an indirect or surreptitious fashion, though the term itself is almost always used in a
pejorative sense.

Contents
Usage
Examples
United States
Post World War II
Russia
Propaganda term
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Usage
The term plutocracy is generally used as a pejorative to describe or warn against an undesirable condition.[2][3] Throughout history,
political thinkers such as Winston Churchill, 19th-century French sociologist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, 19th-century
Spanish monarchist Juan Donoso Cortés and today Noam Chomsky have condemned plutocrats for ignoring their social
responsibilities, using their power to serve their own purposes and thereby increasing poverty and nurturing class conflict, corrupting
societies with greed and hedonism.[4][5]

Examples
Historic examples of plutocracies include the Roman Empire, some city-states in Ancient Greece, the civilization of Carthage, the
Italian city-states/merchant republics of Venice, Florence and Genoa, and the pre-World War II Empire of Japan (the zaibatsu).
According to Noam Chomsky and Jimmy Carter, the modern day United States resembles a plutocracy, though with democratic
forms.[6][7] Former Chairman of the federal reserve,Paul Volcker, also believes the US is developing into a plutocracy
.[8]

One modern, formal example of a plutocracy, according to some critics, is the City of London.[9] The City (also called the Square
2) has a unique electoral system forits
Mile of ancient London, corresponding to the modern financial district, an area of about 2.5 km
local administration, separate from London proper. 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. In fact about 450,000 non-residents constitute the city's day-time population, far outnumbering the City's 7,000
residents.[10]
United States
Some modern historians, politicians, and economists argue that the United States 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.[11][12][13][14][15][16] President Theodore Roosevelt became known as the "trust-buster" for his aggressive use of United
States antitrust law, through which he managed to break up such major combinations as the largest railroad and Standard Oil, the
largest oil company.[17] According to historian David Burton, "When it came to domestic political concerns, TR's Bete Noire was the
plutocracy."[18] In his autobiographical account of taking on monopolistic corporations as president, TR recounted

…we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny
.[19]
the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy

The Sherman Antitrust Act had been enacted in 1890, with large industries reaching monopolistic or near-monopolistic levels of
market concentration and financial capital increasingly integrating corporations, 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."[20]

In his book The Conscience of a Liberal, in a section entitled The Politics of Plutocracy, 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.[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.[22]

In 1998, Bob Herbert of The New York Times referred to modern American plutocrats as "The Donor Class"[23][24] (list of top
donors)[25] and defined the class, for the first time,[26] as "a tiny group – just one-quarter of 1 percent of the population – and it is not
[23]
representative of the rest of the nation. But its money buys plenty of access."

Post World War II

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.[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] According to Kevin Phillips, author and political
[36]
strategist to Richard Nixon, the United States is a plutocracy in which there is a "fusion of money and government."

Chrystia Freeland, author of Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else,[37] says that the
.[38][39]
present trend towards plutocracy occurs because the rich feel that their interests are shared by society

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 of
f and society transformed.

— Chrystia Freeland, NPR

When the Nobel-Prize winning economistJoseph 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 United States is increasingly ruled by the wealthiest 1%.[40] Some
researchers have said the US may be drifting towards a form of oligarchy
, as individual citizens have less impact than economic elites
and organized interest groups upon public policy.[41] A study conducted by political scientists Martin Gilens (Princeton University)
and Benjamin Page (Northwestern University), which was released in April 2014,[42] 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. Winters[43] with respect to the US.

Russia
A report by Credit Suisse in 2013 states that "Russia has the highest level of wealth inequality in the world, apart from small
Caribbean nations with resident billionaires." Worldwide, there is one billionaire for every USD 170 billion in household wealth;
Russia has one for every USD 11 billion.

Propaganda term
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.[44][45] Plutocracy replaced democracy and capitalism as the principal fascist term for the
United States and Great Britain during the Second World War.[45][46] For the Nazis, the term was often a code word for "the
Jews".[45]

See also
Aristocracy
Anarcho-capitalism
Banana republic
Corporatocracy
Corporate republic
Elitism
Meritocracy
Kleptocracy
Neo-feudalism
Oligarchy
Overclass
Plutonomy
Timocracy
Upper class
Wealth concentration

References
1. "Plutocracy" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plutocracy). Merriam Webster. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
2. Fiske, Edward B.; Mallison, Jane; Hatcher , David (2009). Fiske 250 words every high school freshman needs to
know. Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks. p. 250.ISBN 978-1402218408.
3. Coates, ed. by Colin M. (2006).Majesty in Canada: essays on the role of royalty
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ISBN 978-1550025866.
4. Viereck, Peter (2006). Conservative thinkers: from John Adams to W
inston Churchill. New Brunswick, New Jersey:
Transaction Publishers. pp. 19–68.ISBN 978-1412805261.
5. Toupin, Alexis de Tocqueville; edited by Roger Boesche; translated by James;Boesche, Roger (1985). Selected
letters on politics and society. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 197–198.ISBN 978-0520057517.
 6. Chomsky, Noam (6 October 2015). "America is a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy"(http://www.salon.com/2
015/10/06/noam_chomsky_america_is_a_plutocracy_masquerading_as_a_democracy_partner/) . Salon. Retrieved
13 Feb 2015.
7. Carter, Jimmy (15 October 2015). "Jimmy Carter on Whether He Could Be President oTday: "Absolutely Not" " (http://
www.supersoul.tv/supersoul-sunday/jimmy-carter-on-whether-he-could-be-president-today-absolutely-not)
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supersoul.tv. Retrieved 13 Feb 2015.
8. Sorkin, Andrew (23 October 2018). "Paul Volcker, at 91, Sees 'a Hell of a Mess in Every Direction
' " (https://www.nyti
mes.com/2018/10/23/business/dealbook/paul-volcker-federal-reserve.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur) . New York
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9. Monbiot, George (31 October 2011). "The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest"
(http
s://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/31/corporation-london-city-medieval). The Guardian. Retrieved
1 November 2011.
10. René Lavanchy (12 February 2009)."Labour runs in City of London poll against 'get-rich' bankers"(https://web.archi
ve.org/web/20150115021037/http://www.tribunemagazine.org/2009/02/labour-runs-in-city-of-london-poll-against-%E
2%80%98get-rich%E2%80%99-bankers//). Tribune. Archived from the original (http://www.tribunemagazine.org/200
9/02/labour-runs-in-city-of-london-poll-against-%E2%80%98get-rich%E2%80%99-bankers//) on 15 January 2015.
Retrieved 17 January 2015.
11. Pettigrew, Richard Franklin (2010).Triumphant Plutocracy: The Story of American Public Life from 1870 to 1920.
Nabu Press. ISBN 978-1146542746.
12. Calvin Reed, John (1903).The New Plutocracy. Kessinger Publishing, LLC (2010 reprint).ISBN 978-1120909152.
13. Brinkmeyer, Robert H. (2009). The fourth ghost: white Southern writers and European fascism, 1930-1950
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14. Allitt, Patrick (2009). The conservatives: ideas and personalities throughout American history
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15. Ryan, foreword by Vincent P. De Santis; edited by Leonard Schlup, James G. (2003).Historical dictionary of the
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16. Viereck, Peter (2006). Conservative thinkers: from John Adams to W
inston Churchill. New Brunswick, New Jersey:
Transaction Publishers. p. 103.ISBN 978-1412805261.
17. Schweikart, Larry (2009).American Entrepreneur: The Fascinating Stories of the People Who Defined Business in
the United States. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
18. Burton, David Henry (1997).Theodore Roosevelt, American Politician(https://books.google.com/?id=zMdfna-aocwC
&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=theodore+roosevelt+plutocracy#v=onepage&q=theodore%2 0roosevelt%20plutocracy&
f=false). ISBN 9780838637272. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
19. "Roosevelt, Theodore. 1913. An Autobiography: XII. The Big Stick and the Square Deal"
(http://www.bartleby.com/5
5/12.html). bartleby.com. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
20. Bowman, Scott R. (1996).The modern corporation and American political thought: law
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University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. 92–103.
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21. Krugman, Paul (2009).The conscience of a liberal([Pbk. ed.] ed.). New York: Norton. pp. 21–26. ISBN 978-
0393333138.
22. Kahn, Shamus (18 September 2012)"The Rich Haven’t Always Hated Taxes" (http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/18/the-
rich-havent-always-hated-taxes/)Time Magazine
23. Herbert, Bob (19 July 1998). "The Donor Class" (https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/19/opinion/in-america-the-donor-
class.html). The New York Times. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
24. Confessore, Nicholas; Cohen, Sarah; Y ourish, Karen (10 October 2015)."The Families Funding the 2016
Presidential Election" (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/11/us/politics/2016-presidential-election-super-p
ac-donors.html). The New York Times. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
25. Lichtblau, Eric; Confessore, Nicholas (10 October 2015)."From Fracking to Finance, a Torrent of Campaign Cash -
Top Donors List" (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/us/politics/wealthy-families-presidential-candidates.html#don
ors-list). The New York Times. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
26. McCutcheon, Chuck (26 December 2014)."Why the 'donor class' matters, especially in the GOP presidential scrum"
(http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Politics-Voices/2014/1226/Why-the-donor-class-matters-especially-in-the-G
OP-presidential-scrum). "The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
27. Lind, Michael (Dec 2009). "T O-Word". The Baffler. doi:10.1162/bflr.2009.18.46 (https://doi.org/10.1162%2Fbflr.2009.
18.46).
28. Barker, Derek (2013). "Oligarchy or Elite Democracy? Aristotle and Modern Representative Government".New
Political Science. 35 (4): 547–566. doi:10.1080/07393148.2013.848701(https://doi.org/10.1080%2F07393148.2013.
848701).
29. Nichol, Gene (2012-03-13)."Citizens United and the Roberts Court's W ar on Democracy" (https://archive.is/2014043
0161850/http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/gsulr/vol27/iss4/19) . Georgia State University Law Review. 27 (4): 1007–1018.
Archived from the original (http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/gsulr/vol27/iss4/19)on 2014-04-30. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
30. Muller, A., Kinezuka, A., and Kerssen, T (Summer 2013). "The Trans-Pacific Partnership: A Threat to Democracy
and Food Sovereignty"(http://www.itsourfuture.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Institute-for-Food-and-Developm
ent-Policy-The-Trans-Pacific-Partnership-A-Threat-to-Democracy-and-Food-Sovereignty .pdf) (PDF). Food First
Backgrounder. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
31. Etzioni, Amitai (Jan 2014)."Political Corruption in the United States: A Design Draft"(http://journals.cambridge.org/d
ownload.php?file=%2FPSC%2FPSC47_01%2FS1049096513001492a.pdf&code=ba2e895791f0f037b810d4d41529
542f). Political Science & Politics. 47 (1): 141–144. doi:10.1017/S1049096513001492(https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS1
049096513001492). Retrieved 30 April 2014.
32. Winters, Jeffrey (March 2012). "Oligarchy" (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&ai
d=8502723). Perspectives on Politics. 10 (1): 137–139. doi:10.1017/S1537592711004294(https://doi.org/10.1017%
2FS1537592711004294). Retrieved 30 April 2014.
33. Westbrook, David (2011)."If Not a Commercial Republic - Political Economy in the United States after Citizens
United" (https://web.archive.org/web/20140502000423/http://www .louisvillelawreview.org/sites/louisvillelawreview.or
g/files/pdfs/printcontent/50/1/Westbrook.pdf) (PDF). Lousiville Law Review. 50 (1): 35–86. Archived fromthe original
(http://www.louisvillelawreview.org/sites/louisvillelawreview.org/files/pdfs/printcontent/50/1/Westbrook.pdf) (PDF) on
2 May 2014. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
34. Liptak, Adam (21 January 2010)."Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit"(https://www.nytimes.com/2010/0
1/22/us/politics/22scotus.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0). New York Times. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
35. Full Show: The Long, Dark Shadows of Plutocracy(http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-long-dark-shadows-pluto
cracy/). Moyers & Company, 28 November 2014.
36. Transcript. Bill Moyers Interviews Kevin Phillips (https://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_phillips.html). NOW
with Bill Moyers 4.09.04 | PBS
37. Freeland, Chrystia (2012). Plutocrats: the rise of the new global super-rich and the fall of everyone else. New York:
Penguin. ISBN 9781594204098. OCLC 780480424 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/780480424).
38. National Public Radio (15 October 2012)"A Startling Gap Between Us And Them In 'Plutocrats'"(https://www.npr.or
g/2012/10/15/162799512/a-startling-gap-between-us-and-them-in-plutocrats)
39. See also the Chrystia Freeland interview for the Moyers Book Club (12 October 2012) Moyers & Company Full
Show: Plutocracy Rising(http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-plutocracy-rising/)
40. Stiglitz Joseph E. "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%"(http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-per
cent-201105#) Vanity Fair, May 2011; see also theDemocracy Now! interview with Joseph Stiglitz: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" (http://w
ww.democracynow.org/2011/4/7/nobel_economist_joseph_stiglitz_assault_on) , Democracy Now! Archive, Thursday,
7 April 2011
41. 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."
42. Martin Gilens & Benjamin I. Page (2014)."Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and
Average Citizens" (http://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theori
es_of_american_politics.doc.pdf)(PDF). Perspectives on Politics. 12 (3): 564–581.
doi:10.1017/S1537592714001595(https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS1537592714001595) .
43. Winters, Jeffrey A. "Oligarchy (https://books.google.com/books/about/Oligarchy
.html?
id=trsFIM5h3P8C&redir_esc=y)" Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 208-254
44. "The Editors: American Labor and the War (February 1941)" (http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/fi/vol02/
no02/editors2.htm). marxists.org. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
45. Blamires, Cyprian; Jackson, Paul (2006).World fascism: a historical encyclopedia, V
ol. 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 522.
ISBN 978-1-57607-940-9.
46. Herf, Jeffrey (2006). The Jewish enemy: Nazi propaganda during World W
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University Press. p. 311.ISBN 978-0-674-02175-4.

Further reading
Howard, Milford Wriarson (1895). The American plutocracy. New York: Holland Publishing.
Norwood, Thomas Manson (1888).Plutocracy: or, American white slavery; a politico-social novel. New York: The
American News Company.
Pettigrew, Richard Franklin (1921).Triumphant Plutocracy: The Story of American Public Life from 1870 to 1920.
New York: The Academy Press.
Reed, John Calvin (1903).The New Plutocracy. New York: Abbey Press.
Winters, Jeffrey A. (2011). "Oligarchy" Cambridge University Press

External links
Documentary Plutocracy Political repression in the U.S.A. part 1, by Metanoia Films
Documentary Plutocracy II: Solidarity ForeverPolitical repression in the U.S.A. part 2, by Metanoia Films

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