Musing on Plutocracy

link here to article

Yves Smith reviews several recent books on the advent of plutocracy and how it can happen in a democratic society. There are many good insights in the books under review and she makes her usually insightful comments as well. One of the problems under discussion is the media focus so much of our attention on the horse race between the political parties. Most people have very little information about what is really happening in government and their understanding of the issues is weak. Consequently, those who want to alter the playing field to their advantage have an open field to play with. Most people will not realize how things are being changed until after it has happened. Most writers trace the beginnings of the plutocratic revival to the Reagan and Thatcher regimes. One author finds the beginnings in the Carter administration. Yves traces it back to the reaction to the 60's and the Vietnam protest era that was a real threat to the system of control that was in place. I think that she is closer to the truth. The conservative plan to change the game from a dialogue between the far left and the center left into a dialogue, like we have today, between the far right and the center right, began in the early 70's. It has been very effective.

One of the debates that we have been currently having over the financial crisis is over deregulation and how it happened. The simple answer is that deregulation is much easier to implement. The regulator simply does nothing and we have deregulation. On the other hand, advocates for greater regulation actually have to do something that takes effort.

In any case, I do not intend to do a total review of Yves review. It is well worth reading in its entirety.