Runaway exploitation of the system by predatory banks was made possible by the Clinton “reforms” of the 1990s and the lax application of those rules that still prevailed. This includes the dismantling of the apparatus to regulate financial activities specifically and big business generally. In addition, several significant governmental actions have been taken that directly favor the moneyed interests. Third, the readiness of the country’s political class to ignore what has been happening, and the absence of remedial action that could have been taken, in themselves are clear indicators of who shapes thinking and determines public policy. Second, other countries (many even more enmeshed in the world economy) have seen nothing like the drastic phenomenon occurring in the United States.

Plutocrat Bezos at the Pentagon with then Defense Secretary Ash Carter, May 2016.(Wikimedia Commons)įirst, there is every reason to think that such a process has accelerated over the past nine years during which disparities have widened at a faster rate. That argument won’t wash, though, for three reasons.

Theoretically, there is the possibility that this change is due to structural economic features operating nationally and internationally. the wealthiest 1 percent of the world’s population, now own more than half of the world’s wealth (according to a Credit Suisse report in Nov. Meanwhile, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates et al, i.e. Between 20, the real net worth of 90 percent of Americans has declined by 25 percent. That pattern has been markedly accelerated since the financial crisis hit in 2008. In short, the overwhelming fraction of all the wealth created over two generations has gone to those at the very top of the income pyramid. To put it somewhat differently, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the top earning 1 percent of households gained about 8 times more than those in the 60 percentile after federal taxes and income transfers between 19 and 10 times those in lower percentiles. In that period, real GDP has risen by 110 percent – it has more than doubled. Estimates for the rise in real income for salaried workers over the past 40 years range from 20 percent to 28 percent. The familiar statistics tell us that nearly 80 percent of the national wealth generated since 1973 has gone to the upper 2 percent and 65 percent to the upper 1 percent. Gross income redistribution upwards in the hierarchy has been a feature of American society for the past decades. Let’s look at some striking bits of evidence. The United States today qualifies as a plutocracy – on a number of grounds. Also, in some exceptional circumstances rich individuals who hold powerful positions may govern in the interests of the many, for example Franklin Roosevelt.

Moreover, government of the rich and for the rich need not be run directly by the rich. These aspects of “plutocracy” are not exclusive. “Rule” can have various shades of meaning: those who exercise the authority of public office are wealthy their wealth explains why they hold that office they exercise that authority in the interests of the rich they have the primary influence over who holds those offices and the actions they take.

Plutocracy literally means rule by the rich. The United States today qualifies as a plutocracy – on a number of grounds, and it is having a profound impact on the media, education and think tanks–indeed on the whole of society, says Michael Brenner.

Corporate plutocracy