What happened next? Plutocracy happened next. About the same number of families lost their homes. In quick order, about 9 million workers lost their jobs. No American born after the 1929 crash had ever since anything like this. “Everything solid in the American economy turned out to be built on sand.” “Citigroup appeared poised to go down next, with General Motors and Chrysler to follow,” remembers the New Yorker’s George Packer.
The giant insurer AIG stumbled toward another.
The giant Lehman Brothers investment bank fell into one yawning fissure. economy ever since the housing bubble popped the year before turned into an economic earthquake. Our freshest slam-dunk evidence: the record of the decade since the Wall Street financial crash ushered in the Great Recession.Īlmost exactly ten years ago, in late summer 2008, the tremors that had been roiling the U.S. In a plutocracy, on the other hand, the political system pays no more than lip-service to average people’s problems and works diligently instead at protecting - and growing - the wealth of the already wealthy.īy this simple standard, we Americans today unquestionably live in a plutocracy. We have a democracy when a political system can and does make a good-faith effort to address the problems average people face. How can we tell when a democracy, or rule by the people, evolves into a plutocracy, the reign of the rich? Easy. Plutocracy is often used alongside other critical terms for corrupt or unjust forms of government, such as oligarchy (a system in which power is held by a small group of people) and autocracy (a government in which one person has unlimited power).A handy guide for understanding when a democracy ceases to be particularly democratic. Instead, the term is often used to imply that such a system leads to corruption and oppression-no matter what the official form of government is or what the specific politics of its leaders are. Plutocracy does not imply a specific political doctrine or philosophy. In a plutocracy, rich people have the power. The first part of the word comes from ploûto(s), meaning “wealth.” (The name of the god Pluto of Greek mythology-for whom the dwarf planet is named-comes from the related Greek Ploutōn, meaning “the rich one.”) The second part of the word comes from the Greek -kratia, which means “rule” or “power” and gives us the suffix -cracy, which is used in many terms for forms of government, such as democracy and bureaucracy. The first records of the word plutocracy come from around 1650. It can also refer to the wealthy class that is using wealth to rule, as in The businessman was accused of being a member of the plutocracy.Ī wealthy person who rules or influences leaders in a plutocracy can be called a plutocrat.Įxample: Average citizens are angry because they believe billionaires have turned the government into a plutocracy to benefit themselves. Plutocracy can also refer to the power that this kind of wealth can allow, as in His latest column explains his belief that the government has been corrupted by plutocracy. It is frequently used as a way of pointing out inequality and the powerful influence of the wealthy in politics and government.Ī country that is thought to have a plutocratic government can also be referred to as a plutocracy, as in Many outsiders saw the nation as an oppressive plutocracy. Plutocracy is never used as an official term for a form of government (like democracy is, for example)-it’s almost always applied as a criticism of such situations. This can mean that wealthy people are the actual leaders, or that they influence or control the decisions that the leaders make. Plutocracy is a term for a government in which wealthy people use their wealth to rule.
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