Is America a Plutocracy?

[dust1n]

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


In a plutocracy, the degree of economic inequality is high while the level of social mobility is low. This can apply to a multitude of government systems, as the key elements of plutocracy transcend and often occur concurrently with the features of those systems.


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.










Why or why not?

 

[Sunstone]

Most likely. We're falling behind other countries in terms of social mobility and the gulf between rich and poor is wider now than at any other time after 1929. As Plutarch used to say, all Republics are destroyed by too great a gap between rich and poor.

 

[Peacewise]

Not a plutocracy because the social mobility is high, when compared to other forms of societies.

Ghetto rapper millionaire anyone? America is well known as a place where anyone can make it rich.

 

[Sunstone]

Not a plutocracy because the social mobility is high, when compared to other forms of societies.

Depends on who you compare us too. I guess if you compare us to some third world dictatorship, then social mobility is high here. But if you compare us to our peers, it's in decline and not as high as it used to be.

Ghetto rapper millionaire anyone? America is well known as a place where anyone can make it rich.

The reputation outlasts the reality.

 

[rojse]

Ghetto rapper millionaire anyone? America is well known as a place where anyone can make it rich.

Everyone loves those sort of stories because they rarely ever happen.

 

[Peacewise]

Of course gangsta rapper rarely happens, however they do happen, hence there is certainly social mobility.

And what about the less dramatic social mobility, that of the parents who did not go to university, work hard in non professional positions and send their kids to university to become professionals - this happens much more than gangsta rapper.

Or the people who start a business with nothing but an idea and hard work, and make a living from it.

Social mobility is high in america imo. I am unaware of the relative differences between america and her peers, interesting question though.

 

[dust1n]

America is well known as a place where anyone can make it rich.

Unfortunately, it is not really acknowledged that not everyone can make it rich.

 

[Eliot Wild]

Of course gangsta rapper rarely happens, however they do happen, hence there is certainly social mobility.

And what about the less dramatic social mobility, that of the parents who did not go to university, work hard in non professional positions and send their kids to university to become professionals - this happens much more than gangsta rapper.

Or the people who start a business with nothing but an idea and hard work, and make a living from it.

Social mobility is high in america imo. I am unaware of the relative differences between america and her peers, interesting question though.

I think your's is a common misconception regarding social/financial mobility in this country. And I certainly mean no offense to you by saying that. I too held this misconception until not too long ago.

However, if you are really interested in looking at some studies and statistics, I would recommend one done by Kent State University: "Higher Education and Social Mobility in the United States". Or another by the Center for American Progress called "Understanding Mobility in America". I think research for the latter was more or less compiled by a professor named Tom Hertz at American University.

Here is a quote regarding one of the studies:

" . . . Professor Kathryn Wilson, associate professor of economics at Kent State University, summarizes the main finding of the latter study: “'People like to think of America as the land of opportunities. The irony is that our country actually has less social mobility and more inequality than most developed countries.'”

And again, I am not trying to pick on your post specifically--as I mentioned, you hold a lot of the same misconceptions as me--but while reading it, I was thinking that for every former gang member turned Hip-Hop billionaire, there are millions of minority families who have suffered through generation after generation of impoverishment due to factors, both social and institutional, that stand in the way of upward mobility for them. For every inner-city youth that grows up to earn a professional athletics contract, there are billions of others who, whether right or wrong, see crime as the only mechanism for escaping generational poverty and social stagnation.

Also, for every Bill Gates software inventor who leaps from one social class to another practically overnight through personal brilliance and/or industriousness, there are literally thousands of small businesses that fail every year, or countless numbers of creative minds whose work and ingenuity are exploited by corporate bosses using institutionalized forces as undue pressure to take advantage of their work.

I know, boo hoo hoo . . . right? If your boss steals your idea and the company makes millions overnight while you still draw your same paycheck, you should have been smarter or had a little more foresight.

I'm not saying the causes for social stagnation are solely the fault of America, it's government, its laws and/or its mostly ambivalent citizenry. I'm not even saying there is a problem. As far as I can tell, America is an ownership state, and its people get the government as well as the national conditions that they deserve (though I actually don't really wish that, even if I do believe that is the sad state of affairs right now).

I am just saying that an image isn't always to be trusted. America has a reputation, at least among its own people, for being a land of boundless opportunity, where anyone who works hard enough or who is good enough can leap-frog to the upperclass simply by being hard-working and/or good. Unfortunately, that is merely an image. More often than not, upward mobility in America is more akin to playing the lottery, where hardwork and talent mean much less than pure dumb luck or the willingness to forego integrity in favor of material success.

But, then again, what do I care . . . I'm relatively comfortable here in my middle-class job, and if my novel sells, then I might get rich and prove myself to be full of bluster, hyperbole and false amplification. I guess my point is that I am just like everyone else, too self-satisfied to get really angry at the things I find impossible to fix on my own.

 

[Sunstone]

Of course gangsta rapper rarely happens, however they do happen, hence there is certainly social mobility.

And what about the less dramatic social mobility, that of the parents who did not go to university, work hard in non professional positions and send their kids to university to become professionals - this happens much more than gangsta rapper.

Or the people who start a business with nothing but an idea and hard work, and make a living from it.

Social mobility is high in america imo. I am unaware of the relative differences between america and her peers, interesting question though.

Your ideas seem to be based more on America's reputation than on fact and reality.

 

[xkatz]

I would say to extent, the rich are more likely to be in positions of power in our society. That said however, the middle and lower classes are substantially larger and thus they determine who they vote for and/or what causes they support.

 

[McBell]

Ghetto rapper millionaire anyone? America is well known as a place where anyone can make it rich.

But only if the rich let them.
Face it, no one becomes rich with out the permission of the rich.
Not in the USA anyway.

 

[dust1n]

But only if the rich let them.
Face it, no one becomes rich with out the permission of the rich.
Not in the USA anyway.

Basically.

If the top one percent of the population owns over 50 percent of the wealth, how exactly does anyone in the bottom 90 percent actually plan on attaining any wealth?

 

[Aquitaine]

To be honest I'd take it further and say that at present, and throughout the majority of our history, the World has been run by Plutocrats.

When I think of "Plutocracy/archy", I think of how the world is truely run.

 

[Peacewise]

Well it certainly is true that an individual needs a team of people supporting them to be able to make a million(s), and that the people who are already rich are most likely to know what kind of support is best suited to the goal of getting rich.
A poor man only thinks he knows how to get rich, whilst a rich man has lived it.

 

[dust1n]

A poor man only thinks he knows how to get rich, whilst a rich man has lived it.

That is not a fair assessment. The majority of rich people are born into wealth.

 

[Peacewise]

It is an accurate assessment. Fairness has nothing to do with it. I agree with you the majority of rich people are born into wealth, thus making it easier for them to remain wealthy, this however does not negate the social mobility of those people who begin poor and become rich.

 

[dust1n]

It is an accurate assessment. Fairness has nothing to do with it. I agree with you the majority of rich people are born into wealth, thus making it easier for them to remain wealthy, this however does not negate the social mobility of those people who begin poor and become rich.

But again.. if you are in a low-income family and you statistically have a one percent chance of getting rich... how does that not negate social mobility?

http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/hertz_mobility_analysis.pdf

The key findings relating to intergenerational mobility include the following:

Ø Children from low-income families have only a 1 percent chance of reaching the top
5 percent of the income distribution, versus children of the rich who have about a 22
percent chance.

Ø Children born to the middle quintile of parental family income ($42,000 to $54,300)
had about the same chance of ending up in a lower quintile than their parents (39.5
percent) as they did of moving to a higher quintile (36.5 percent). Their chances of
attaining the top five percentiles of the income distribution were just 1.8 percent.

Ø Education, race, health and state of residence are four key channels by which
economic status is transmitted from parent to child.

Ø African American children who are born in the bottom quartile are nearly twice as
likely to remain there as adults than are white children whose parents had identical
incomes, and are four times less likely to attain the top quartile.

Ø The difference in mobility for blacks and whites persists even after controlling for
a host of parental background factors, children’s education and health, as well as
whether the household was female-headed or receiving public assistance.

Ø After controlling for a host of parental background variables, upward mobility varied

by region of origin, and is highest (in percentage terms) for those who grew up in the
South Atlantic and East South Central regions, and lowest for those raised in the West
South Central and Mountain regions.

Ø By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of
intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes
as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France,
Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Among high-income
countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom
had a lower rate of mobility than the United States.

Ø Since 1990-91, there has been an increase in the share of households who
experienced significant downward short-term mobility. The share that saw their
incomes decline by $20,000 or more (in real terms) rose from 13.0 percent in 1990-
91 to 14.8 percent in 1997-98 to 16.6 percent in 2003-04.

Ø The middle class is experiencing more insecurity of income, while the top decile is
experiencing less. From 1997-98 to 2003-04, the increase in downward short-term
mobility was driven by the experiences of middle-class households (those earning
between $34,510 and $89,300 in 2004 dollars). Households in the top quintile
saw no increase in downward short-term mobility, and households in the top decile
($122,880 and up) saw a reduction in the frequency of large negative income shocks.

Ø For the middle class, an increase in income volatility has led to an increase in the
frequency of large negative income shocks, which may be expected to translate to an
increase in financial distress.

Ø The median household was no more upwardly mobile in 2003-04, a year when GDP
grew strongly, than it was it was during the recession of 1990-91.

Ø Upward short-term mobility for those in the bottom quintile has improved since
1990-91, with no significant offsetting increase in downward short-term mobility.

Ø Households whose adult members all worked more than 40 hours per week for two
years in a row were more upwardly mobile in 1990-91 and 1997-98 than households
who worked fewer hours. Yet this was not true in 2003-04, suggesting that people
who work long hours on a consistent basis no longer appear to be able to generate
much upward mobility for their families.

 

[Nepenthe]

Unapologetically plagiarized from Mr. Fish:

 

[Peacewise]

Well it depends entirely upon who the scale is related to doesn't it. If one wants to argue that social mobility is low then choose to relate it to the countries with the highest social mobility and get a scale that supports that argument. If one wants to argue that it is high, then pick a bunch of lower. The accurate person would choose to look at each of the national measures of social mobility and put them all in a scale, and thence say america is xth on that scale.
Perhaps a social mobility of 1% is relatively high.
A quick wiki read has revealed that economic mobility is not the only form of mobility, and hence my definition of social mobility based only upon the gansta rapper getting rich or the non uni parents sending their kids to uni is not representative of the complexity of the issue.

Apparently economic capital is merely one of three indicators, the other two being social capital and cultural capital.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility - though I don't see it answer the question of america being a plutocracy or not, but it does mention a Meritocracy, which seems to me a more accurate assessment of the small amount of knowledge on america I possess.

 

[rojse]

Well it depends entirely upon who the scale is related to doesn't it. If one wants to argue that social mobility is low then choose to relate it to the countries with the highest social mobility and get a scale that supports that argument. If one wants to argue that it is high, then pick a bunch of lower. The accurate person would choose to look at each of the national measures of social mobility and put them all in a scale, and thence say america is xth on that scale.
Perhaps a social mobility of 1% is relatively high.
A quick wiki read has revealed that economic mobility is not the only form of mobility, and hence my definition of social mobility based only upon the gansta rapper getting rich or the non uni parents sending their kids to uni is not representative of the complexity of the issue.

America is being compared to other developed countries in terms of social mobility. America has lower social mobility than most other developed countries except the United Kingdom.

Apparently economic capital is merely one of three indicators, the other two being social capital and cultural capital.

Social mobility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - though I don't see it answer the question of america being a plutocracy or not, but it does mention a Meritocracy, which seems to me a more accurate assessment of the small amount of knowledge on america I possess.

And how do we quantify "merit"? Through a person having qualifications, usually educational, which is controlled by a person's access to money.