The New Plutocracy |
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
The United States is not a democracy. It is a plutocracy. It is not simply a plutocracy because of Donald Trump’s presidency and the likes of Elon Musk and other billionaires who are running the government. The most recent Forbes listing of the richest Americans points to a concentration of wealth never seen in US history.
Plutocracy is defined as government by the wealthy. It is not just when the wealthy rule directly, but it is also about who governs. Yet to ask the question “Who governs America?” one needs to look to who benefits from its public policies and the economic system. To answer that, let’s look at the distribution of wealth in America.
Yearly Forbes releases its list of the wealthiest individuals in the world. The 2025 ranking is dominated yet again by Americans, with Elon Musk topping the chart at $394 billion. He is closely followed by Mark Zuckerburg at $254 billion, Jeff Bezos at........