Plutocracy

José Pardo Barreda and Manuel Candamo, two of the main members Twenty-four friendsa group of oligarchy that ruled Peru during the aristocratic period.

Plutocracy (from the Greek ploutos 'wealth' and kratos 'power') is a form of oligarchy in which a society is ruled or controlled by the minority of its wealthiest members. The first known use of the term is due to Xenophon. Unlike other systems such as democracy, capitalism, socialism or anarchism, plutocracy is not based on any theory of political philosophy. The concept is usually used in a pejorative sense, to warn of the risks of a government system excessively influenced by the wealthiest strata of a society. In this sense, plutocracy is presented as a critical synthesis of democracy, universal suffrage and parliamentarism, whose operation can be excessively distorted by the richest members of a society.

Concept

In its classical view, plutocracy is often considered a type of oligarchy. This is promoted by the experiences in some city-states of classical Greece (Corinth, Thebes and, in some phases of its history, Athens), the Roman Republic from 300 to 146 BC. C., ancient Carthage, or some city-states of medieval Italy (Genoa, Venice and Florence). In such cases, economic elites could exercise a disproportionate role or absolute control of political or social power. In addition, in many cases (Rome, Corinth or Venice, as examples) the elites limited the access to political representation of the inhabitants of said states, linking it to minimum wealth requirements.

However, plutocracy should not be confused as a general rule with systems where the exercise of citizenship is tied to a minimum wealth. For example, in census suffrages a minimum contribution to public finances (census) is required to be able to vote, but these systems are not plutocratic a priori because the contributions do not pass necessarily to promote only the interests of the plutocratic classes. Such was the case, for example, in the United Kingdom before 1828: suffrage was restricted only to citizens with a minimum annual income, only upper-class and middle-class citizens with sufficient wealth got the right to vote, but elections were conducted to a representative system articulated around parties whose political objectives were not necessarily those of satisfying the interests of the wealthiest citizens.

Although not exclusively, plutocracy is usually formed in representative regimes, fulfilling the following general characteristics:

• The representation serves only those who supported him, not in accordance with the mandate of the general will. Supports are the economic elites, that is, the plutocrats.
• There is a possibility that the president will be revoked at any time by the will of the plutocrats.
• There is the responsibility of the president to those who supported him, with an obligation to account for his management.
• The limited and explicit nature of the powers available to the President shall be subject to binding instructions from the plutocrats.

It is therefore a type of imperative and binding mandate that establishes a link of immediate union between the plutocrats and the president. This structure usually appears in those government systems in which those who hold political and legislative power are ordered by economic power.

History

The first historical mention of the term plutocracy is found in Xenophon, referring to the political situation in Athens prior to Solon's reforms. The hippeis (knights), owners of most of the land and slaves, had controlled the political process in Athens, imposing measures designed to exclude the lower classes from the government of the city and ruling exclusively for themselves. your profit. His policies, which included the enslavement of citizens who could not meet their debts, caused a series of political crises that culminated in Solon's reforms, which guaranteed the vote for all citizens regardless of income, strict limits on election of magistrates and even that some public positions were assigned randomly among citizens to inhibit the effects of plutocracy. Similarly, between 133 BC. C. and 123 B.C. the Gracchi staged a brutal revolution against the plutocracy of Rome. Xenophon, and later other Greek writers such as Thucydides, saw plutocracy as a source of political instability, and his writings on the subject were always aimed at preventing the emergence of such a thing. system. However, for Thucydides the plutocracy would never appear as an alternative political system to democracy or aristocracy, but as a corruption of such systems, unstable and distorted, and closely linked to the oligarchy. In particular, Thucydides and Xenophon pointed out that plutocrats tend to ignore the interests of the state, social responsibility and political issues, using power for their own benefit. This led to social conflict, hedonism and decadence. Thucydides and Seneca argued that the plutocracy would inevitably be abolished in a revolution, leading to the monarchy.

Throughout history, political thinkers such as Winston Churchill, Alexis de Tocqueville, Juan Donoso Cortés or Noam Chomsky have similarly condemned the plutocracy for focusing solely on the interests of economic power, ignoring the interests of society and the state.

In the modern world, plutocracy does not usually manifest itself directly as it did in classical antiquity, where the government was exercised directly by the plutocrats. However, the existence of plutocratic tendencies in modern liberal democracies is a frequently debated topic, often manifesting itself in the suggestion that certain pressure groups such as business groups exert undue influence on the political process. This should not be confused with other forms of oligarchy that may be present in such regimes. For example, control of the media by a few can lead to a more targeted distortion of the electoral process, such that the media is a vital element in an election (see ochlocracy). Certain groups maintain that criticism of the current situation or a specific agenda tends to be hidden through media groups in order to protect their own interests. Supporters counter that freedom of expression makes it possible for both for-profit organizations and for non-profit to discuss these issues. They argue that media coverage in democracies simply reflects public preferences, and does not imply censorship. Marxists, socialists and anarchists maintain that liberal democracies are an integral part of the capitalist system, in addition to being based on the division into social classes and are not fully democratic or participatory. It is a bourgeois democracy where only the most powerful rule. Because of this it is seen as an unequal system that works in a way that facilitates economic exploitation. On the contrary, for Vilfredo Pareto the dominant plutocracy is not so much the government of businessmen as the government of plundering politicians who appeal to public power for their personal benefit. If the dominant minority is actually a set of groups whose interests diverge at times, political competition can in certain circumstances induce leaders to seek the support of the majority by promoting the interests of the majority.

Plutocracy and party financing

A common form of plutocracy today could be motivated by irregular party financing. This can lead to the formation of a business or factual holding company around state power in a partitocracy or democracy, which, after financing parties and the media, forces political patronage, most of the time through favoritism legislation.

According to the US nomenclature, there is a relatively important distinction in party financing regarding the type of money used:

On the one hand, “hard money” (hard money), funds from contributions regulated by the Federal Election Campaign Act, which establishes limits to the contributions that can be do individuals, political parties, and Political Action Committees (PACs), which are organizations formed specifically to raise campaign funds. Corporations and unions may not make direct contributions to candidates but may form Committees that collect contributions from their employees or associates. While what a PAC can give a candidate directly for election is often limited, PACs can spend an unlimited amount of money on contributions that don't go directly to the candidate but go to campaigns that advocate on behalf of the candidate. for—or against—certain candidates.

On the other hand, “soft money” (soft money), which comes from contributions that are not regulated by the aforementioned law. There is no limit to the contributions that any institution can make to the National Committee of a political party. Although, theoretically, this money cannot be used to induce citizens to vote for—or against—a certain candidate, political parties very easily circumvent this restriction with advertising promotions that carefully avoid phrases such as " Vote for..." or "Don't vote for...", but they engage in demagogy.

Finally, there is an additional category of massive political money that is contributed by institutions such as, for example, the Chamber of Commerce, and that is spent on specific advertising on specific issues. It is criticized arguing that it falls into the fiction of assuming that these campaigns do not directly promote a certain candidacy but any politician, just by positioning his speech in line with the advertised theme, benefits directly from the promotion.

Current situation

Currently, intellectuals such as the late writer José Saramago, the political scientist Manuel Bartlett or the professor Alejandra Salas-Porras speak of the existence in various countries of a plutocratic regime. We highlight:

• In Mexico Manuel Bartlett, who was Secretary of Government said: At this point of time, Mexico is a plutocracy. Currently in that country the social activity seems to be conditioned between the order imposed by Washington and the power of business holdings that in the field of the market that exhibit monopolistic or oligopolistic positions in some segments of basic products and services (telephones, cement (Cemex), beer (Model Group), flour) or are large shareholders of the media (Azcárraga and Televisa, that to the country, 70%).

• In the United States some economists such as Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, have denounced the alleged existence of this regime. The Reform of Campaign Financing, which takes place in the United States, is an attempt to correct these problems, although there are many dissidents within the project’s own advocates in terms of the wording. Marty Jezer, founding member of the Working Group on Electoral Democracy of the United States, has been vigorously promoting an intense campaign in this regard, stating:

Money is the greatest determinant of political influence and success. The money determines which candidates will be able to promote effective campaigns and influence which candidates will win elective positions. The money also determines the parameters of the public debate: what issues will be put on the table, where they will appear, and how the legislation will be designed. Money allows rich and powerful interest groups to influence elections and dominate the legislative process.

Marty Jezer, "Money in Elections", article Washington Times, 2005.

It is notorious as those companies that have special interests in certain legislative issues contributed large sums of money in the campaign. However, U.S. economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner assert in their book Freakonomics that campaign expenditures are not a guarantee of electoral success:

A winning candidate can reduce his expenses in half and lose only 1% of his votes. Meanwhile, a losing candidate who doubles his expenses can expect an increase in his votes in that same 1%.

Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics, 2005.

• In Spain we speculate on the influence of the Grupo Prisa (El País, Cadena Ser, Cuatro, Los 40 Principals...) and Sogecable, of the Grupo Santander Central Hispano y BBK and of La Caixa Holding (La Caixa Gas Natural.) among others, in the PSOE, and of Radio Popular (COPE, Cadena 100...) through the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Mapfre-Caja Madrid Holding (Caja). Also in Spain, efforts are being made to reform the Organic Law 3/1987 of 2 July on the Financing of the Political Parties, but the project has been continually hindered. There are convictions such as the Pallerols case.

• In Europe the European and global financial power and its influence through the troika (FMI, ECB and European Commission) would have established a pluutocratic oligarchy in Europe that would have been shown palpably during the crisis of the euro and the Great recession when social demands would be postponed, the fight against tax havens, the control of banking, the Tobin rate and any other measure that could put limits on the establishment of the exclusive financial power.