A plutocracy (from Ancient Greek πλοῦτος (ploûtos) 'wealth' and κράτος (krátos) 'power') or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. It can be considered a form of oligarchy (rule by the few) where the ruling few are wealthy. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631.[1] It is not rooted in any established political philosophy.[2]

Usage

The term plutocracy is generally used as a pejorative to describe or warn against an undesirable condition.[3][4] "Dollarocracy", an anglicised adaptation of the word "plutocracy", may refer to "a specifically American version of plutocracy".[5]

Examples

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.[6][7] In 2018, Paul Volcker, a former chair of the Federal Reserve, stated he also believed the U.S. to be developing into a plutocracy.[8]

One modern, formal example of a plutocracy, according to some critics,[9] is the City of London.[10] 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.[11]

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.[12][13] Plutocracy replaced democracy and capitalism as the principal fascist term for the U.S. and Great Britain during World War II.[13][14] In Nazi Germany, it was often used as a dog whistle term for Jewish people in their antisemitic propaganda.[13] 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".[15]

United States

US federal minimum wage 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.[16][17][18][19][20][21] 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.[22] According to historian David Burton, "When it came to domestic political concerns, TR's bête noire was the plutocracy."[23] In his autobiographical account of taking on monopolistic corporations as president, Roosevelt recounted:

Causation

According to Piketty, a nation that is experiencing rapid economic growth, income inequality will tend to increase as the rate of return on innovation increases.[48][undue weight? – discuss]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Plutocracy". Merriam Webster. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  2. ↑ "Plutocratic Populism - ECPS". Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  3. ↑ Fiske, Edward B.; Mallison, Jane; Hatcher, Dave (2009). Fiske 250 words every high school freshman needs to know. Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks. p. 50. ISBN 9781402260797. [...] Plutocracy and plutocrat are almost always used in a pejorative or negative sense.
  4. ↑ Coates, Colin M., ed. (2006). Majesty in Canada: essays on the role of royalty. Toronto: Dundurn. p. 119. ISBN 978-1550025866.
  5. ↑ Muller, Denis (9 August 2021). "Democracy Under Strain". Journalism and the Future of Democracy. Cham, Zug: Springer Nature. pp. 10–11. ISBN 9783030767617. Retrieved 13 July 2024. 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.
  6. ↑ Chomsky, Noam (6 October 2015). "America is a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy". Salon. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  7. ↑ Carter, Jimmy (15 October 2015). "Jimmy Carter on Whether He Could Be President Today: "Absolutely Not"". supersoul.tv. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  8. ↑ Sorkin, Andrew (23 October 2018). "Paul Volcker, at 91, Sees 'a Hell of a Mess in Every Direction'". New York Times. Retrieved 28 October 2018.
  9. ↑ Atkinson, Rowland; Parker, Simon; Burrows, Roger (September 2017). "Elite Formation, Power and Space in Contemporary London". Theory, Culture & Society. 34 (5–6): 179–200. doi:10.1177/0263276417717792. hdl:1983/13493d5a-5155-42e1-8ca2-66839fea4712. ISSN 0263-2764.
  10. ↑ Monbiot, George (31 October 2011). "The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
  11. ↑ René Lavanchy (12 February 2009). "Labour runs in City of London poll against 'get-rich' bankers". Tribune. Archived from the original on 15 January 2015. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  12. ↑ "The Editors: American Labor and the War (February 1941)". marxists.org. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
  13. 1 2 3 Blamires, Cyprian; Jackson, Paul (2006). World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 522. ISBN 978-1-57607-940-9.
  14. ↑ Herf, Jeffrey (2006). The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust. Harvard University Press. p. 311. ISBN 978-0-674-02175-4.
  15. ↑ 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.
  16. ↑ Pettigrew, Richard Franklin (2010). Triumphant Plutocracy: The Story of American Public Life from 1870 to 1920. Nabu Press. ISBN 978-1146542746.
  17. ↑ Calvin Reed, John (1903). The New Plutocracy. Kessinger Publishing, LLC (2010 reprint). ISBN 978-1120909152. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  18. ↑ Brinkmeyer, Robert H. (2009). The fourth ghost: white Southern writers and European fascism, 1930-1950. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. p. 331. ISBN 978-0807133835.
  19. ↑ Allitt, Patrick (2009). The conservatives: ideas and personalities throughout American history. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 143. ISBN 978-0300118940.
  20. ↑ Ryan, James G.; Schlup, Leonard, eds. (2003). Historical dictionary of the Gilded Age. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe. p. 145. ISBN 978-0765603319.
  21. ↑ Viereck, Peter (2006). Conservative thinkers: from John Adams to Winston Churchill. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. pp. 103. ISBN 978-1412805261.
  22. ↑ Schweikart, Larry (2009). American Entrepreneur: The Fascinating Stories of the People Who Defined Business in the United States. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
  23. ↑ Burton, David Henry (1997). Theodore Roosevelt, American Politician. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. ISBN 9780838637272. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
  24. ↑ "Roosevelt, Theodore. 1913. An Autobiography: XII. The Big Stick and the Square Deal". bartleby.com. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
  25. ↑ Bowman, Scott R. (1996). The modern corporation and American political thought: law, power, and ideology. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. 92–103. ISBN 978-0271014739.
  26. ↑ Krugman, Paul (2009). The conscience of a liberal ([Pbk. ed.] ed.). New York: Norton. pp. 21–26. ISBN 978-0393333138.
  27. ↑ Kahn, Shamus (18 September 2012) "The Rich Haven't Always Hated Taxes" Time Magazine
  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. S2CID 145063601.
  29. ↑ Etzioni, Amitai (January 2014). "Political Corruption in the United States: A Design Draft" (PDF). Political Science & Politics. 47 (1): 141–144. doi:10.1017/S1049096513001492. S2CID 155071383.
  30. ↑ Westbrook, David (2011). "If Not a Commercial Republic - Political Economy in the United States after Citizens United" (PDF). Louisville Law Review. 50 (1): 35–86. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 May 2014. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
  31. ↑ Full Show: The Long, Dark Shadows of Plutocracy. Moyers & Company, 28 November 2014.
  32. ↑ Transcript. Bill Moyers Interviews Kevin Phillips. NOW with Bill Moyers 4.09.04 | PBS
  33. ↑ 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.
  34. ↑ Freeland, Chrystia (15 October 2012). "A Startling Gap Between Us And Them In 'Plutocrats'" (Interview). National Public Radio. Retrieved 12 April 2023.
  35. ↑ See also the Chrystia Freeland interview for the Moyers Book Club (12 October 2012) Moyers & Company Full Show: Plutocracy Rising
  36. 1 2 Herbert, Bob (19 July 1998). "The Donor Class". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
  37. ↑ Confessore, Nicholas; Cohen, Sarah; Yourish, Karen (10 October 2015). "The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
  38. ↑ Lichtblau, Eric; Confessore, Nicholas (10 October 2015). "From Fracking to Finance, a Torrent of Campaign Cash - Top Donors List". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
  39. ↑ McCutcheon, Chuck (26 December 2014). "Why the 'donor class' matters, especially in the GOP presidential scrum". "The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
  40. ↑ Stiglitz Joseph E. "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%". Vanity Fair, May 2011; see also the Democracy 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'", 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. ↑ Evers-Hillstrom, Karl (23 April 2020). "Majority of lawmakers in 116th Congress are millionaires". OpenSecrets. Retrieved 10 July 2024.
  43. ↑ Martin Gilens & Benjamin I. Page (2014). "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" (PDF). Perspectives on Politics. 12 (3): 564–581. doi:10.1017/S1537592714001595.
  44. ↑ Winters, Jeffrey A. "Oligarchy" Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 208–254
  45. ↑ "The World's Billionaires". forbes.com. Archived from the original on 3 April 2013. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
  46. ↑ Buffett: 'There are lots of loose nukes around the world' Archived 30 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine CNN.com
  47. ↑ Buffett, Warren (26 November 2006). "In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class is Winning". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 3 January 2017.
  48. ↑ Piketty, Thomas (2013). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9781491534649.

Further reading

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Donor_Class