Today’s Washington Post (11/12/23) had two articles that reminded me that the U.S. is a plutocracy– as is the entire world.  The first’s headline was, “Trump courts donations from oil barons, who thrived during his first term.”  It was all about oil billionaires like Harold Hamm who last month donated $200,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC – after earlier calling for Trump to drop out of the race and donating money to his rivals.  Apparently, Hamm and other right wing oil billionaires have been hedging their bets but are joining the Trump bandwagon now that he seems unstoppable, plus he has been courting them by talking about how he will trash the environment to their benefit.

The second headline was, “Rich in Friendship: The patrons of Clarence and Ginni Thomas.”  It told of how rich and influential right-wing billionaires, like Harlan Crow and H. Wayne Huizenga, have given the Thomas’ globe-trotting vacations and financial support.  Plutocracy can be defined as a “government controlled exclusively by the wealthy, either directly or indirectly.”  That is really what we have.  At a surface level in the U.S., you see it in the fact that Senators and Representatives are generally very wealthy.  But more to the point, all their reelections are financed by large money donors.  Even Supreme Court justices seem to be greatly influenced by the rich.  Even if all these leaders, Democrats as well as Republicans, are not completely bought and paid for, it is big money that has a major influence over what political positions they and the country take.

The real problem can be seen even more clearly globally.  Leftist critics like me are often accused of being conspiracy theorists, saying that the world is being run by some capitalist ruling elite.  But the left doesn’t need or usually use conspiracy theories – we live in a world where structures – capitalism, patriarchy, racism – operate in the interests of those with power and money without the need for conscious collusion.

But let’s not be so quick to dismiss conspiracies, or, at least, conscious collusion.  What else is the World Economic Forum that gathers the rich and powerful in business and politics in Davos each year?  They meet openly and privately to consider national and global politics and economics, followed by their great direct and indirect influence on governments around the world.  What else is the Trilateral Commission?  How many people have even heard of the Trilateral Commission?  They are the same rich and powerful people who go to the World Economic Forum each year but who keep their annual meetings private, outside of the scrutiny of the media or public.  In the U.S., what else is the Bohemian Grove retreat in California, amazingly still an all-male enclave for the rich and powerful?

And make no mistake about it, they want to and try to run the world.  In 2010, the World Economic Forum unveiled its Global Redesign Initiative to begin a corporate takeover of the United Nations.  They have been succeeding in moving the UN away from governance by countries to governance by “stakeholders,” with business being the most prominent.

Many of these plutocrats know each other, work together, socialize together.  Last year I attended a talk by Richard Wolff, the phenomenal critical political economist, who argues that the plutocrats are not some faceless mass, but are identifiable, perhaps the 1% of the 1%, perhaps just 10,000 individuals who are on the Boards of Directors and CEOs of major corporations and their big shareholders.  These people make the major decisions about our economic and political lives.  We need to recognize, confront, and stop the plutocracy!