Plutocracy

I’ve just spent the last hour refining this last section of a chapter in my book, American Democracy Through the Looking Glass, and decided to post it here to get reactions from readers. I am allowing everyone to view and comment on it as a means to get critical feedback and guidance. Does it resonate with you or is it off-putting and not indicative of your lived experiences?

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Wayne

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The legal and economic framework codified in the Constitution by the founders was designed to preserve their own wealth and status. Maybe they did so with an altruistic, aspirational attitude assuming everyone desired to become like them. However, history shows something far different evolved. That same framework, mostly unreformed in many respects over the last 238 years, has enabled and continues to enable the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a few. And it doesn’t do so blindly or apolitically. The favorite expression of capitalists about the market being “rational” ignores that it is used and operated by sometimes irrational people for irrational purposes. A system, after all, is only as equitable as the people who wield it. But capitalism does not operate as an altruistic dispenser of economic justice. Quite the opposite. While most do not see the overall economy as a zero-sum game, capitalism is a wealth generator that works best when people use it for their own self interests. If, as the balancing of the equation demands, someone loses money in a transaction, it is considered business, not personal; efficient, not wasteful.

To the extent that people who carry their personal biases, worldviews, and desires about how to change the world possess the compounded financial power of being among America’s wealthiest and the political power of elected office, it would be naïve to assume they would not use such power to serve themselves.

Plutocracy: A Working Definition

The online, crowd-sourced encyclopedia Wikipedia defines plutocracy as “a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income.” I desire a more practical, working definition that clearly accounts for both the visible apparatus of governance and the invisible forces that use it.

Plutocracy is the indirect governance of society by unelected wealthy elites, who, by proxy, use their wealth to influence the operations of an elected government and shape political decisions that disproportionately benefit themselves.

If that influence produces outsized rewards for a few, it necessarily diminishes the share available to others. Again, this is not a zero-sum game in strict mathematical terms, but the directional flow is clear. Using a nautical metaphor: plutocrats do not seek to lift all boats. They seek deeper water for their own, leaving others stranded on the sandbar. The trickle-up is steady, even if unnoticed by those distracted by the myth of rising tides. Plutocrats do not involve themselves in the daily work of governing. The mere presence of wealth commands attention, deference, and loyalty. Power flows toward them like iron to a magnet. Their influence is wielded not through direct action but through the marionette strings of lobbyists, campaign financing, media ownership, and policy shaping. The illusion of democracy persists but only because the puppet show remains convincing.

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