Plutocracy?

Following is a dialog that was conducted by email. To contribute further, please post a Comment below.

Dan Brook
I think the US is more accurately an aristocracy or plutocracy.

Wade Lee Hudson
I no longer believe that the accumulation of wealth and power is society’s driving force. Gaining status is equally if not more important. And almost everyone if not everyone seeks relatively greater status. I certainly have. Those of us who do are complicit. We reinforce the System. Scapegoating the rich is a diversion and it nurtures divisive violent communication.

DB
I’m not scapegoating the rich, as the problem is what many rich people do with their wealth, including undermining democracy and killing the planet. Most people seem to want to increase their economic wealth, political power, and social status, so it’s intersectional, and I’m not sure these can be meaningfully separated. The elite or 1% or aristocracy or whatever one wants to call them have way disproportionate social, political, and economic power and use those powers to maintain and gain more.

WLH
I appreciate your intersectional formulation. I certainly agree that some people have disproportionate power and use it to maintain and gain more. But who is this “elite” and what is its power? Among those who’ve tried to answer this question, there has been no consensus. If we are a plutocracy, government by the wealthy, what about other social sectors? Oppressive hierarchies are pervasive throughout society, in every sector. These systems embed the widespread tendency to submit broadly. This tendency reinforces the concentration of political power. Undoing personal conditioning would help to democratize the government. Our self-perpetuating social system consists of our institutions, our culture, and ourselves as individuals. No one element controls a system. We cannot blame the “elite.” We share some responsibility. We need to reform every sector synergistically.

DB
The fact that all are responsible shouldn’t negate the fact that some are much more responsible than others. I have some rights and responsibilities as a tenant, but on larger matters, the landlord certainly has more power. Likewise with me as an employee, a consumer, a voter, a citizen. When the landlords, owners, bosses, presidents, plutocrats, etc. have much more economic wealth, political power, and social status, as well as technological tools and military power, I am comfortable blaming the elite, regardless of what we do and don’t do as individuals. The dynamics are very asymmetrical.

It’s been estimated that the top 100 most-polluting corporations account for about 71% of all human contributions to our climate crisis. The concept of the carbon footprint, and the idea of personal responsibility for climate change (and even the term climate change itself), was corporate public relations designed to take the heat off the corporations, so that people would blame themselves, instead of the corporations or the larger problem of capitalism. C. Wright Mills wrote The Power Elite in 1956, where he spoke of the political, economic, and military elite. Thomas Dye, in his Who’s Running America?, gave it flesh and bones, so to speak, by identifying 7000+ positions in American society that collectively wield tremendous influence and make most of the “big decisions”. This certainly doesn’t address all concerns, but it’s a good start.

WLH
I appreciate that you acknowledge all are responsible. If we the people conducted massive boycotts or General Strikes, the impact could be transformative. But most people are passive and submissive, and many are waiting for a charismatic Savior such as Obama or Sanders — neither of whom has engaged in essential grassroots organizing. Why are people so passive and submissive? And most want to be wealthy themselves.

To “blame” is to “assign responsibility,” as in “the inquiry blamed the engineer for the accident.” You acknowledge it’s wrong to say “the elite” is solely responsible. To only talk about their responsibility diverts attention away from our collective responsibility and our tendency to dominate or submit in our daily lives — private habits that carry over into political activities. This reality calls for the need to undo oppressive social conditioning, as well as address the concentration of wealth and power.

DB
Let’s imagine a different example. During the time of apartheid in South Africa, it mattered what individuals thought and did, both individually and collectively, but the white elite were most responsible for setting up and actively maintaining the racist system that rewarded the white minority while punishing the black majority. I think this is an apt analogy.

WLH
I agree that certain individuals are "most responsible for setting up and actively maintaining" the political-economic system, but I do not believe they "rule" as in a plutocracy. Our social system — the System — includes many other important elements. The South African experience is instructive. Having the right to elect representatives makes a big difference. It gives people important countervailing power. What to call the System is unclear. A corrupted democracy? A so-called meritocracy? Systemic rankism? Regardless, it's more than politics and economics.

Larry Walker
I will not claim a stake in this dialog. Clearly both Wade and Dan have
given their respective positions a lot of thought.

I will, however, use this dialog as a 'teachable moment' -- which I may
or may not do a good job of. My observations:
o Both of you have STRONG opinions about this topic.
o In the dialog as I read, I see both of you trying to convince the other "that you are right".
o This seems like a form of the 'domination' you are trying to eradicate.
o There is an alternative path -- as follows:
+ Your two views overlap a great deal.
+ If we made a Venn diagram, the two circles would overlap with a large piece of intersection.
+ This intersection = "Common Ground", i.e. you both believe in that same part.
+ The pieces outside of Common Ground represent your strongly held differences.
o The 'compromise solution consists of 3 parts:
+ Common ground that you both strongly support.
+ Wade's 'difference' piece which he strongly endorses.
+ Dan's 'difference' piece which he strongly endorses.
o Working TOGETHER, the two of you need to construct this 3-piece solution.
+ The result is a wonderful, multi-dimensional explanation of domination as seen from two different perspectives.
+ Anyone who reads it would have a wonderful resource to help them understand what is going on.

Thoughts.

WLH
Actually, I believe I was trying to find common ground and believe we made progress on figuring out how to talk about the elite's power. I agreed that the elite (whoever they are) exercise "disproportionate" power and Dan agreed that "all are responsible." As I see it, that leaves us with a "corrupted democracy," not a plutocracy in which the elite "rules." To "blame" the elite in that way diminishes others' responsibility, a fact that calls for an examination of why that is the case. That examination leads to an analysis of the social conditioning that leads to the desire to dominate and the willingness to submit in daily lives.
BTW, I see nothing wrong with "trying to convince the other 'that you are right'" — so long as you stay open to the possibility you're wrong, at least in some respects.

Might we call our government a "plutocratic democracy"?

DB
Sure, we could call it that, as well as various other formulations. In modern America, we’ve been seeing more plutocracy and less democracy.

2014 study: The US is an oligarchy with a wealthy and powerful elite:
“When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.”

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis:
“We must make our choice. We may either have democracy or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”

According to Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, their research concludes that “The correlations are terrifying in their clarity and consistency. To put it simply, the more unequal a society, the worse off most of its citizens were. This didn’t just play out on one or two metrics. When compared with more equal societies with similar incomes [e.g., Japan, Sweden], more unequal societies [e.g., the US] had worse infant mortality, worse educational scores, higher teen pregnancies, more [students] dropping out of high school, more drug abuse, more homicides, more mental illness, more people in prison, greater obesity, more health problems overall and shorter lives. [In contrast, in addition to having fewer of those social problems,] societies that were more equal showed higher innovation, greater use of environmental resources, and ... greater social mobility [cf. The Meritocracy Myth] [as well as greater levels of well-being, trust, empathy, generosity, and support for foreign aid].”

WLH
I agree we’re seeing more plutocracy and less democracy. Concerning that 2014 paper, Vox.com published “Remember that study saying America is an oligarchy? 3 rebuttals say it's wrong.” That article reported: “Research published since then has raised serious questions about this paper, both its finding and its analysis…. That contention [“When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.”] they argue, is vastly overstated…. When average citizens disagree [with the rich], they win about half the time anyway…. The middle class still gets its preferred policies enacted 26 percent of the time even when the rich are opposed.”

Shortly thereafter the authors published a Post op-ed rebuttal titled, “Critics argued with our analysis of U.S. political inequality. Here are 5 ways they’re wrong.” In that piece, they write, “When only the affluent strongly support a proposed policy change, that policy is adopted 46 percent of the time; when only the middle-class strongly support a policy, that policy is adopted only 24 percent of the time…. Influence over government policymaking is massively unequal in America… The affluent have more power than the rest… Strong support among high-income Americans roughly doubles the probability that a policy will be adopted….” Their specifics contradict their generalizations.

Moreover, they merely conclude that these facts constitute “a serious indictment of the quality of American democracy.” That conclusion and their research fall well short of claiming this country is an oligarchy ruled and controlled by a wealthy elite. This suggests another potential descriptive phrase: an Imperfect democracy. Clearly, the right to vote makes a big difference.

One reason this country is not an oligarchy is that “policymakers must (in order to avoid subsequent punishment) heed all ‘potential’ groups that would form if their interests were trampled upon,” as another academic argues. That threat constitutes power.

Critically, the authors fail to really address why ordinary Americans don’t exercise more power, though they do say, “Some particular U.S. membership organizations—especially the AARP and labor unions—do tend to favor the same policies as average citizens. But other membership groups take stands [that do not].” Fragmented single-issue groups rarely unite. Rather, they raise money for themselves by advancing dramatic, unrealistic objectives, and often trashing potential allies. Americans for Humanity is promoting alternative strategies.

DB
One could nitpick the study, but I think it holds up well.

Many popular policies --- universal healthcare, higher minimum wages, tuition-free college, parental leave, sick leave, marijuana legalization, DACA protections, immigration reform, etc. --- are stalled or blocked, while we have corporate bailouts, lower taxes on the rich and corporations, an increase in the already bloated military budget, etc.

Real wages are low, Social Security is inadequate, medical bankruptcies are rampant, students don't go or drop out of college due to cost, homelessness is growing, unionization rates are low, workers are increasingly temporarily permanent and permanently temporary, yet the number of billionaires and their obscene wealth grew to over 2660 with a combined wealth of $13.76 trillion with an average of over $5 billion each.

Our privately-funded elections are increasing in cost each cycle, which gives the wealthy and corporations even more leverage over this system, where most politicians are dependent on them. It's good that we can still vote, but we mostly get to vote for candidates who are funded by the wealthy and corporations. And then there are the 35,000 or so full-time lobbyists, mostly representing corporations and corporate industries. And then there is the advertising, public relations, corporate mass media, etc.

So, whatever we call it, and wherever we are on the spectrum of plutocracy and democracy, the direction of the last few decades away from democracy and further toward plutocracy is problematic and does not bode well for health, safety, security, and stability.

WLH
Your description of many of the problems we face is articulate and accurate. My question is: Why are these problems manifest and how can we best address them? We need a unified, massive, independent social movement to do so, but activists are fragmented. Why does this fragmentation persist and how can we overcome it?

The reasons for the lack of an independent social movement are many. Self-interested activists seek power in part for selfish reasons. They compete for status within their organizations. They define leadership as the ability of leaders to get followers to do what the leader wants. They fail to fully engage members in democratic decision-making to shape the organization, though members become more committed when they have a real voice. They fail to really listen to those they try to recruit; instead, they talk and talk and try to persuade with lectures and speeches. Arrogance and harsh judgments prevail. They mobilize people by inflaming fear and anger rather than promoting proactive solutions. They fail to critically examine their own behavior and the instincts and socialization that shape it and fail to engage in self-reform and support each other in this effort. These patterns are merely some examples of personal and interpersonal weaknesses that undermine the development of popular power.

Moreover, among the general public, similar weaknesses are problematic. Many Americans want to be rich and identify with and support those who are. A moral commitment to protect the planet and relieve suffering among the entire human family is lacking. Many Americans are driven by the desire to defeat “the enemy.” Many are increasingly identifying with their Democratic and Republican tribes, so their position on issues shifts if their party’s position shifts. Many are looking for a Savior. Many are racist, xenophobic, or hyper-nationalistic. Many are hyper-individualistic and fail to take care of themselves and their families in order to help take care of others. They want to “get ahead,” climb a social ladder, and look down on and dominate those below.

How we label our society influences our strategy for building popular power. To promote democracy throughout society, which would advance democracy in the government and the economy, perhaps we should say that our society is characterized by “systemic elitism grounded in self-interested materialism.”

DB
As Karl Marx said (and is inscribed on his tombstone):
"The philosophers have interpreted the world; the point, however, is to change it."

And I also agree with your assessment of the problem (e.g., racism, corruption, bread and circuses, individualism, etc.).

Noam Chomsky has written about 3 forms of democracy.

(1) Real-world democracy is the type of defective democracy we see in the real world, whereby those with economic power have too much control of the political system. He describes it as top-down, hollowed-out, and defective. But it might still be better than an authoritarian or worse totalitarian system.

(2) Dictionary definition of democracy is not necessarily the definition one would find in a dictionary, which is often a capitalist commodity, but rather based on etymology. Demos means people and kratos means rule, so Chomsky wants us to consider to what extent people rule, to what extent regular people have meaningful input into the major decisions that affect their lives.

(3) Radical democracy is simply about extending the dictionary definition from the realm of politics into ALL spheres of society, with the default position being democracy and the burden on those who might have objections to democracy to adequately argue why it shouldn't be democratic (e.g., health, privacy, national security).

Chomsky is most sympathetic to radical democracy.

WLH
I agree. Especially with regard to domestic politics, I find Chomsky to be reliably insightful. Another advocate of radical democracy was Sheldon Wolin. He was a professor of mine at UCB. I read his journal Democracy closely. And the New Left’s advocacy of participatory democracy remains relevant.

The question is how to move in this direction. I believe a democratic grassroots movement based on shared principles and small councils that select representatives to upper-level bodies is one way to build a powerful, independent social movement.

On this site, we’re collecting resources and proposals that might help with this project.

Political Resources/Action include:

Citizen Assemblies — these have been proven to be practical, especially in Ireland.

Community Dialogs with Elected Officials — not yet implemented, I believe these events, with speakers randomly selected, could serve to hold officials accountable and would be organizing tools for community organizations.

Transforming the Democratic Party — since the Party is already inclusive and has a structure that is theoretically democratic, it could become a grassroots activist organization, though this development is unlikely.

Political Resources/Democracy includes numerous resources, especially under Advocates/Services. I find the Center for Deliberative Democracy to be particularly instructive.

We recently connected with the promising Growing Democracy Project and are engaged in intensive dialogs with Michael Johnson about this effort on the Systemic sections of the site.

We welcome additional resources and proposals that might help advance radical democracy.

DB
These are all good ideas. Promoting unionization, more worker-owned co-ops, and the like could also be helpful. As could encouraging participatory budgeting at the city and state level.

And I wonder what we could learn from the Paris Commune of 1871. It was highly participatory and cooperative, it was very democratic and representative, it was progressive and relatively egalitarian, and it was militarily crushed quite quickly.

WLH
Yes, indeed promoting unionization and worker-owned and -controlled businesses is important. Taking another look at the Paris Commune and participatory budgeting would be interesting. Can you refer me to one or more articles on those subjects?

Also, I'm wondering what's happening with the Kurds in Northern Iraq. This article was promising: How My Father’s Ideas Helped the Kurds Create a New Democracy, https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/06/15/how-my-fathers-ideas-helped-the-kurds-create-a-new-democracy/

However, I wonder about "It's the economy, stupid." It seems the U.S. union movement was weakened when certain unions decided to focus on the interests of their own members and neglected the movement as a whole.

Moreover, I'm beginning to question the notion of "enlightened self-interest" — the belief that if I support you, eventually I will benefit. That's still a self-interested motivation. A moral commitment to do the right thing is different, and it seems that we need a widespread, moral awakening that affirms that principle. How to nurture this awakening is another matter.

DB
Although a genuine commitment to morality, generosity, and compassion are preferable, I'd be more than happy to settle for enlightened self-interest for most people.

Dorsey Blake
I agree we need to do all we can to protect what we have against the Republicans who seek to destroy. That is why I urged young organizers at a national meeting in October last year to vote for Biden for the presidency although I did not like his politics. I have resorted to voting in the last couple of elections for the very compromised Democrats. Biden received the nomination of the Democrats because it would not have a Bernie Sanders with his socialist ideas as its nominee. What would that have meant for the corporate control of the nation.

When my voice (and the voice of millions of people) is ignored consistently and deprived of decision-making, then it is difficult for me to call this a democracy. When poverty is intentionally structured into the very fabric of society, it is difficult for me to call what we have a democracy. It is true that many of us aspire to a democracy. That is important. But that aspiration has not been realized and cannot be realized within the present economic system of capitalism. It just cannot. The system is predicated on an employer/employee, an inherently unjust (anti-democratic) distribution of wealth and power.

Thank you for your wonderful engagement of ideas that I articulate. It is helpful.