The title of this post comes from the title of a book published in 1921, by Richard Pettigrew. He was a U.S. Senator from South Dakota.
I find the title of his book disturbing because it suggests from the get-go that the triumph has already occurred - it's a done deal. And it is also suggestive of the sad fact that where there are winners, there are also losers.
For those who haven't already Googled the term: plutocracy - 1. the rule or power of wealth or of the wealthy. 2. a government or state in which the wealthy class rules. 3. a class or group ruling, or exercising power or influence, by virtue of its wealth.
There have been many articles recently pertaining to the Princeton/Northwestern study which concludes that America is an oligarchy (the rule by a few). One article I read recently made the case that "plutocracy" is the more accurate term, and I agree.
These articles reminded me of Pettigrew's book, which has been sitting on my shelf waiting for me to pick it up and read it. Actually, I did start reading it a few years ago before putting it down to focus on some other books. Here are a few items I highlighted at the time which I think are very relevant for today. Keep in mind that this was published in 1921, with observations on the preceding 50 years.
"The American people should know the truth about American public life. They have been lied to so much and hoodwinked so often that it would seem only fair for them to have at least one straight-from-the-shoulder statement concerning this government 'of the people, by the people and for the people,' about whose inner workings the people know almost nothing.
"The common people of the United States, like the same class of people in every other country, mean well, but they are ill-informed. Floundering about in their ignorance, they are tricked and robbed by those who have the inside information and who therefore know how to take advantage of every turn in the wheel of fortune."
"Again, bankers, lawyers, manufacturers and business men are going to save the country - not by keeping us out of war, but by getting ready for the next war. It is these men who dominate the life and thought as well as the industries of these United States, and it is just such men that have been in control of the United States ever since I entered the Senate thirty years ago."
"I witnessed the momentous changes [as the United States became "probably the richest and most influential among the great nations"] and participated in them. While they were occurring I saw something else that filled me with dread. I saw the government of the United States enter into a struggle with the trusts, the railroads and the banks, and I watched while the business forces won the contest. I saw the forms of republican government decay through disuse, and I saw them betrayed by the very men who were sworn to preserve and uphold them. I saw the empire of business, with its innumerable ramifications, grow up around and above the structure of government. I watched the power over public affairs shift from the weakened structure of republican political machinery to the vigorous new business empire. Strong men who saw what was occurring no longer went into politics. Instead, they entered the field of industry, and with them the seat of the government of the United States was shifted from Washington to Wall Street. With this shift, there disappeared from active public life those principles of republican government that I had learned to believe were the means of safeguarding liberty. After the authority over public affairs had been transferred to the men of business, I saw the machinery of business pass from the hands of individuals into the hands of corporations - artificial persons - created in the imagination of lawyers, and given efficacy by the sanction of the courts and of the law."
I could go on and on with quotes, but eventually I'd end up replicating the book right here. The point is, America has been a plutocracy virtually from its inception, and the members of the Club became pretty brazen about it during the Gilded Age, and seem to be recapturing that brazen spirit in our time. The question is always the same: what are we going to do about it?
