Plutocracy: Difference between revisions

Content deleted Content added

Inline

Revision as of 09:20, 5 November 2011

Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth. The combination of both plutocracy and oligarchy is called plutarchy.

The word plutocracy (Modern Greek: πλουτοκρατία - ploutokratia) is derived from the Ancient Greek root ploutos, meaning wealth and kratos, meaning to rule or to govern.

Usage

The term plutocracy is generally used to describe these two distinct concepts: one of a historical nature and one of a modern political nature. The former indicates the political control of the state by an oligarchy of the wealthy. Examples of such plutocracies include the Roman Republic, some city-states in Ancient Greece, the civilization of Carthage, the Italian city-states/merchant republics of Venice, Florence, Genoa, and pre-WWII Empire of Japan zaibatsus.

Before the equal voting rights movement managed to end it in the early 20th century, many countries used a system where rich persons had more votes than poor. A factory owner may for instance have had 2000 votes while a worker had one, or if they were very poor no right to vote at all. Even artificial persons such as companies had voting rights.^{[citation needed]} This is still the case in municipal governments of many countries, where the franchise is based on rate-paying and not citizenship alone.

Example

One modern, perhaps unique, formalised example of a plutocracy is the City of London.^[1] The City (not the whole of modern London but the area of the ancient city, which now mainly comprises the financial district) has a unique electoral system. Most of its voters are representatives of businesses and other bodies that occupy premises in the City. Its ancient wards have very unequal numbers of voters. The principal justification for the non-resident vote is that about 450,000 non-residents constitute the city's day-time population and use most of its services, far outnumbering the City's 9000 residents.^[1]

Modern politics

The wealthy minority exerts influence over the political arena via many methods. Most western democracies permit partisan organizations to raise funds for politicians, and political parties frequently accept significant donations from various individuals (either directly or through corporations or advocacy groups). These donations may be part of a cronyist or patronage system, in which major contributors and fund-raisers are rewarded with high-ranking government appointments. While campaign donations need not directly affect the legislative decisions of elected representatives, politicians have a personal interest in serving the needs of their campaign contributors: if they fail to do so, those contributors will likely give their money to candidates who do support their interests in the future. Unless a quid pro quo agreement exists, it is generally legal for politicians to advocate policies favorable to their contributors, or grant appointed government positions to them. In some instances, extremely wealthy individuals have financed their own political campaigns. Many corporations and business interest groups pay lobbyists to maintain constant contact with elected officials, and press them for favorable legislation. Owners of mass media outlets, and the advertisement buyers which financially support them can shape public perception of political issues by controlling the information available to the population and the manner in which it is presented (see also: fourth estate). Within government bureaucracy, there is often the problem of a revolving door: the employees of government regulatory bodies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States, often transition to and from employment with the same companies they are supposed to regulate. This can result in regulations being changed or ignored to suit the needs of business, since the regulators are more likely to later find employment in the private sector if their government work was beneficial to their new potential employer.

In the United States, campaign finance reform efforts ostensibly seek to ameliorate this situation. However, campaign finance reform must successfully challenge officials who are beneficiaries of the system which allows this dynamic in the first place. This has led many reform advocates to suggest taxpayer dollars be used to replace private campaign contributions; these reforms are often called clean money or clean election reform as opposed to simply campaign finance reform which does not address the conflict of interest involved where most or all of the campaign money is from private, often for-profit sources. In 2010, Justice Stevens along with Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor view Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission as having drastically weakened efforts to restrain the effect of money in government. In his dissenting remarks Justice Stevens states:

At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.

Critics of clean elections point out that it allows the sitting government to decide which candidates would qualify to receive tax dollars - and therefore influence who would be allowed to win - thus solving one problem by creating another problem; These laws have increasingly run into constitutional problems in the Courts. Substantial portions of the Vermont (see Randall v. Sorrell), Connecticut,^[2], and Arizona^[3] systems were found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Relative wealth

An individual who is considered wealthy, affluent, or rich is someone who has accumulated substantial wealth relative to others in their society or reference group. One common measure of wealth inequality is the Gini Index.

Alternative definition

An alternate use of plutocracy is a reference to a disproportionate influence the wealthy have on political process in contemporary society: for example, according to Kevin Phillips, author and political strategist to U.S. President Richard Nixon, the United States is a plutocracy in which there is a "fusion of money and government."^[4]

As a propaganda term

In the political jargon and propaganda of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, 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 in ransom.^[5] "Plutocracy" replaced "democracy" and "capitalism" as the principal fascist term for the United States and Great Britain during the Second World War.^[5] For the Nazis, the term was often a code word for "the Jews".^[5]

In modern times, the term is often used to refer to societies rooted in state-corporate capitalism and the prioritization of endless accumulation of wealth over other interests, such as public health, education, or the environment.

References

^ ^a ^b The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest, Guardian, retrieved 01/11/2011
^ Wall Street Journal^{[dead link]}
^ "Politico". Politico. 2011-06-27. Retrieved 2011-06-27.
^ NOW with Bill Moyers. Transcript. Bill Moyers Interviews Kevin Phillips. 4.09.04 | PBS
^ ^a ^b ^c Blamires, Cyprian; Jackson, Paul (2006). World fascism: a historical encyclopedia, Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 522. ISBN 9781576079409. Cite error: The named reference "blamires" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).

External links

The dictionary definition of plutocracy at Wiktionary
Quotations related to Plutocracy at Wikiquote

[Guardian1-1] The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest, Guardian, retrieved 01/11/2011

[2] Wall Street Journal^{[dead link]}

[3] "Politico". Politico. 2011-06-27. Retrieved 2011-06-27.

[4] NOW with Bill Moyers. Transcript. Bill Moyers Interviews Kevin Phillips. 4.09.04 | PBS

[blamires-5] Blamires, Cyprian; Jackson, Paul (2006). World fascism: a historical encyclopedia, Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 522. ISBN 9781576079409. Cite error: The named reference "blamires" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).

[1]

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 ==Usage==
 {{Citations missing|section called "Usage"|date=January 2011}}
-The term ''plutocracy'' is generally used to describe these two distinct concepts: one of a historical nature and one of a modern political nature. The former indicates the political control of the state by an [[oligarchy]] of the wealthy. Examples of such plutocracies include the [[Roman Republic]], some [[city-state]]s in [[Ancient Greece]], the civilization of [[Carthage]], the [[Italian city-states]]/[[merchant republic]]s of [[Republic of Venice|Venice]], [[Republic of Florence|Florence]], [[Republic of Genoa|Genoa]], and pre-WWII [[Empire of Japan]] [[zaibatsu]]s and the United States of America.
+The term ''plutocracy'' is generally used to describe these two distinct concepts: one of a historical nature and one of a modern political nature. The former indicates the political control of the state by an [[oligarchy]] of the wealthy. Examples of such plutocracies include the [[Roman Republic]], some [[city-state]]s in [[Ancient Greece]], the civilization of [[Carthage]], the [[Italian city-states]]/[[merchant republic]]s of [[Republic of Venice|Venice]], [[Republic of Florence|Florence]], [[Republic of Genoa|Genoa]], and pre-WWII [[Empire of Japan]] [[zaibatsu]]s.
 Before the equal voting rights movement managed to end it in the early 20th century, many countries used a system where rich persons had more votes than poor. A factory owner may for instance have had 2000 votes while a worker had one, or if they were very poor no right to vote at all. Even [[artificial person]]s such as companies had voting rights.{{Citation needed|date=January 2011}} This is still the case in municipal governments of many countries, where the franchise is based on rate-paying and not citizenship alone.