“Plutocracy is not an American word but it's become an American phenomenon.”

— Bill Moyers

Last episode of Bill Moyers Journal (30 April 2010) http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/transcript2.html · video http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/watch2.html
Context: Ed Murrow told his generation of journalists bias is okay as long as you don't try to hide it. So here, one more time, is mine: plutocracy and democracy don't mix. Plutocracy, the rule of the rich, political power controlled by the wealthy.
Plutocracy is not an American word but it's become an American phenomenon. Back in the fall of 2005, the Wall Street giant Citigroup even coined a variation on it, plutonomy, an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer with government on their side. By the next spring, Citigroup decided the time had come to publicly "bang the drum on plutonomy." … over the past 30 years the plutocrats, or plutonomists — choose your poison — have used their vastly increased wealth to capture the flag and assure the government does their bidding. … This marriage of money and politics has produced an America of gross inequality at the top and low social mobility at the bottom, with little but anxiety and dread in between, as middle class Americans feel the ground falling out from under their feet. … Like those populists of that earlier era, millions of Americans have awakened to a sobering reality: they live in a plutocracy, where they are disposable. Then, the remedy was a popular insurgency that ignited the spark of democracy. Now we have come to another parting of the ways, and once again the fate and character of our country are up for grabs. … Democracy only works when we claim it as our own.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Plutocracy is not an American word but it's become an American phenomenon." by Bill Moyers?

Bill Moyers 34

American journalist 1934

Related quotes

“This, then, was the American people's first experience of a new social phenomenon that had come upon the world, their introductory education about the Soviet Union and this thing called "communism."”

William Blum (1933–2018) American author and historian

The students have never recovered from the lesson. Neither has the Soviet Union.
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Introduction

“I never use the words Democrats and Republicans. It's liberals and Americans.”

James G. Watt (1938) United States Secretary of the Interior

Statement of November 1981, quoted in New York Times (10 October 1983), also quoted in Energy and Environment : The Unfinished Business (1986) by Congressional Quarterly, Inc., p. 91
1980s

“Calling a Christian 'religious' is like calling an African-American the n-word.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

“Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Letter to Mrs. Blumberg (27 September 1977)

“My dad loved using the word “ain’t.” He said it was the best damn slang word invented by the Americans.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

“Let every man honor and love the land of his birth and the race from which he springs and keep their memory green. It is a pious and honorable duty. But let us have done with British-Americans and Irish-Americans and German-Americans, and so on, and all be Americans…If a man is going to be an American at all let him be so without any qualifying adjectives; and if he is going to be something else, let him drop the word American from his personal description.”

Henry Cabot Lodge (1850–1924) American statesman

The Day We Celebrate (Forefathers' Day), Address, New England Society of Brooklyn (December 21, 1888).

“The law of 1790 providing that no one could become a citizen of the United States except free Whites was the law until the aftermath of the Civil War added the word "black" or "of African descent" to those who could be naturalized. This last provision should be repealed and the blacks with the South American and Central American Indians put on the same footing as the Orientals.”

Madison Grant (1865–1937) American lawyer, eugenicist, and conservationist

The Conquest of a Continent (1933)

“Faced by the actual practice of freedom, the French and American revolutions would be forced to stand by their words.”

William S. Burroughs book Cities of the Red Night

Cities of the Red Night (1981)

“I paint what I see in America, in other words I paint the American scene.”

Stuart Davis (1892–1964) American painter

Cited in: Ian Chilvers, "Davis, Stuart," in: The Oxford Dictionary of Art, (2994). p. 195

“I don't know much about Americanism, but it's a damn good word with which to carry an election.”

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)

Actually an exchange between journalist Talcott Williams and Sen. Boies Penrose (1919)
What is Americanism?
Damn if I know, but it's going to be a damn good word with which to carry an election.
Misattributed

“Plutocracy is not an American word but it's become an American phenomenon.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Bill Moyers 34

Related quotes

Related topics