According to a study from the Pew Research Center last month, nine out of ten Americans give our national economy a negative rating. This marriage of money and politics has produced an America of gross inequality at the top and low social mobility at the bottom, with little but anxiety and dread in between, as middle class Americans feel the ground falling out from under their feet. Remember that Citigroup reference to “market-friendly governments” on their side? It hasn’t mattered which party has been in power - government has done Wall Street’s bidding.ĭon’t blame the lobbyists, by the way they are simply the mules of politics, delivering the drug of choice to a political class addicted to cash - what polite circles call “campaign contributions” and Tony Soprano would call “protection.” Now why is this? Because over the past 30 years the plutocrats, or plutonomists - choose your poison - have used their vastly increased wealth to capture the flag and assure the government does their bidding. In some cases, even better, thanks to our bailout of the big banks which meant record profits and record bonuses for Wall Street. While millions of people have lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings, the plutonomists are doing just fine. the dynamics of plutonomy are still intact.”Īnd so they were, before the great collapse of 2008. “… are likely to get even wealthier in the coming years. “…the top 10%, particularly the top 1% of the US– the plutonomists in our parlance– have benefited disproportionately from the recent productivity surge in the US… from globalization and the productivity boom, at the relative expense of labor.” “Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper… take an increasing share of income and wealth over the last 20 years…”
By the next spring, Citigroup decided the time had come to publicly “bang the drum on plutonomy.”Īnd bang they did, with an “equity strategy” for their investors, entitled, “Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer.” Here are some excerpts: Back in the fall of 2005, the Wall Street giant Citigroup even coined a variation on it, plutonomy, an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer with government on their side. Plutocracy is not an American word but it’s become an American phenomenon. Plutocracy, the rule of the rich, political power controlled by the wealthy. So here, one more time, is mine: plutocracy and democracy don’t mix. Murrow, the Moses of broadcast news.Įd Murrow told his generation of journalists bias is okay as long as you don’t try to hide it. In this regard, I take my cue from the late Edward R.
You’ve no doubt figured out my bias by now. The text of Moyers’ brief essay appears below and you can find the video at Nation of Change. This message lies at the heart of the Occupy movement. Fortunately, in the last edition of his program, Moyers shared his bias: “plutocracy and democracy don’t mix.” When his PBS program, Bill Moyers’ Journal, went off the air last year, a gaping hole appeared in American journalism that has yet to be filled.
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