Talk:Plutocracy

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[edit] POV neutrality

What's with the "I postulate..." in the last paragraph? Can someone with a full account look into this? I just happenned to be hopping by and noticed that, which throws the whole article into a neutrality type question.

-JHolmes


I also found that the last section, "Plutocracy-Forms of Control", to be of questionable neutrality. The rest of the article seemed fine to me.

-PAllec

Someone needs to flag this for POV because of that whole capitalism bashing at the end. Either that or make it a separate section that clearly states it is opinion.

-CCameron

The last few paragraphs under "Forms of Control" sound like a statement of opinion, not an encyclopedia entry. The last paragraph even begins with "I postulate..." . Wikipedia is not a place to postulate. Even though I agree with almost all this writer's statements, they don't belong on this page. I'll try to eliminate the political punditry and reword it to something more neutral.

Noclevername 00:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm politically conservative, and I don't see how the "Forms of Control" section is anti-capitalist. All it's saying is that in a capitalistic system most of the control of the economy is in the hands of those with the most money, and in a free-market system of election spending there is a lot of money influence in how elections go. You can be extremely pro-capitalist and admit that. I do think the use of "undue" in the previous section counted as POV, but I just changed that. As far as I'm concerned, this is a fairly neutral article. There are some strange uses of comments in the "Forms of Control" section, and it needs some consistency as to whether 'plutocracy' should be capitalized, but those aren't really POV issues but more just a need for cleaning up the style of the article. Parableman 20:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External Link POV?

I'm a new editor so I was wondering if the "external link" is a valid source? i.e http://progressiveliving.org/plutocracy_defined.htm I would be tempted to remove the "External Links" section, if there are no objections? And the whole article needs references. I'd be interested in finding some but I'd like some suggestions first. --AWZ (talk) 13:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm a also new editor so I was wondering if my domain http://www.plutocracycaust.com is valid enough to get into the "external link" section to let people get the relation to other disasters shown in massmedia. --User talk:Phsycho (talk) 23:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Second paragraph -- usage

The reference to an interview with Kevin Phillips is a good example of a modern pejorative usage. It seems a bit "lonely" as a sentence standing by itself. Not sure, if it's really a problem. --AWZ (talk) 10:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple voting

"For instance, a factory owner could have 2000 votes, while a worker would only have one. " This is absolute nonsense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.245.227.203 (talk) 01:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Positive influence of bribes!?!?!

What exactly does this sentence mean? "Positive influence [of plutocrats] includes campaign contributions and bribes;" I don't think most people would consider bribes a positive influence on government.

[edit] What is Plutocracy?

Outside of an ideological/utopian fantasy has there or could be a government that is not a plutocracy? -duke

(What good is a plutocracy? A goverment ran by wealth, Ok, so the leaders have wealth... Does that mean they are capable of being leaders? Whee! I win the lottery! I must be capable of running an entire country now! Can a Plutocracy even successfully exist? Does anyone have anything to say to this? -Anonymous)

can it exist? we're living in one! In JERSEY Channel Islands


I added -anonymous to your comment, because you didn't add a signature. I see what you're saying, the initial line is not very informative. "A plutocracy is a government system where wealth is the principal basis of power (from the Greek ploutos meaning wealth)." I did a quick reference on answers.com for the American Heritage definition:

plu·toc·ra·cy (plū-tŏk'rə-sē) n., pl. -cies. 1. Government by the wealthy. 2. A wealthy class that controls a government. 3. A government or state in which the wealthy rule.

I feel that the opening sentence should be changed to read "A plutocracy is a government system ruled and influenced by the wealthy (from the Greek ploutos meaning wealth)." or something to that effect. Thoughts?

--BriskWiki 07:00, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

All governments that have every existed, until the 20th Century, have been plutocracies.

Until the 20th century? Of course we virtually all live in a plutocracy, to a greater or lesser extent. This has always been the case, certainly so since the invention of money made accumulation of wealth relatively easier for those in a position to accumulate wealth. To think otherwise would be naive.

--"All" governments may have displayed plutocracy, it may be an inherent temptation, but I argue that that's exactly why we need a better system put in place that stems the tide of that predispositon. Example: all individuals are capable of lying, cheating and stealing, so we have social rules and laws to curb those possibilities-- So we should with organized bad behavior, the kind in governments: we should set up sound systems to make plutocratic behavior illegal and/or socially unacceptable. It's as simple as that. --Also-- Something in the article I didn't like, but maybe it's that I'm not understanding it. The author states that there's two "unrelated" uses of the term plutocracy. He/she says, basically, that one is refers to the older usage when describing governments, and the other to a contemporary critism of government. My question is this--what exactly is "unrelated" about those two uses, besides the obvious fact that one is history and one is the present? To me, that's like saying my pet here would be called a dog, that's what it's been called historically, but because I'm in the here and now and this dog is alive now, not a word in a book writing about dogs that have gone before, my pet must be completely "unrelated" to "dogs" of the past and I should call him a "frig" instead!! I say you call it what it is!! My dog is a dog, and a plutocracy is a plutocracy, whether it's historic or in the here and now! I think the author of the "plutocracy" page demonstrates the common tendency lately of disregarding history when analyzing present cicumstances, and to me, that's irresponsible, fool-hardy and dangerous. History is important and relevent EXACTLY for the purposes of applying it's lessons to the present, otherwise we'd be in an endless circle, with no progress in sight (I do believe that we are in a spiral, which is kind of like a circle, but that's a different story!) Anyway, maybe I read in wrong, I don't know. What do you guys think?

[edit] What is the origin of the word?

What is the origin of the word?--Nixer 16:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Look on the page. 74.38.35.171 03:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Carthage anyone?

Isn't Carthage run by a senate of rich merchants? Tourskin (talk) 22:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV - Modern political section

It appears that the "Modern political" section not only has a few weasel words, but also trails off topic. It should be looked at further and cleaned up a bit from someone with a little better understanding of the topic. Hackajar (talk) 00:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inherent bias

I am a political science student and I think this article is inherently bias and from a neo-realist ideological perspective.(thats the conservative right wing traditional perspective of international politics) Actually its sort of obvious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.216.174.193 (talk) 06:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Negative connotation

The fact corporations have an economical and social impact by trying to influence (bribe) the (political) elite or large groups of populations, through manipulation, is a fact adhered to by many (academic) people. There are historical precedents which could fuel the aforementioned point if one considers the action class suits directed at multinationals and/or their CEO's and/or shareholders/owners.

If one considers a tyrany to be an example of plutocracy (And nepotism) in its extreme form, one could consider Sadam Hussein (Irak), Ferdinand Marcos (Philipines) or Idi Amin Dada (Uganda) as recent, documented, examples.

The point of contention seems to be whether political, judicial and sociological systems have objective criteria defining actions as being "fundamentaly plutocratic" or not. Although some actions by individuals or corporations can be classified as morally objectionable due to their (negative, deconstructive) impact on the social fabric of a certain society, this is largely a question of historical and cultural point of view. Morality as such is often taken as basis for legal or political argument, but this is not a strictly defined matter and only held as such through consensus or historical fact. From that point of view the pejorative connotation attached to "plutocratic" is subject to debate.

If one considers the convictions of (wealthy) people and companies for bribery or otherwise exerted (negative) influence on a society, there is some basis to define "plutocracy" as detrimental for social fabric on a general level and individuals in specific cases. —Preceding unsigned comment added by VincentJS (talk • contribs) 21:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)