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Webster 1913 Edition


Plutocracy

Plu-toc′ra-cy

(plū̍-tŏk′rȧ-sy̆)
,
Noun.
[Gr.
πλουτοκρατία
;
πλοῦτοσ
wealth +
κρατεῖν
to be strong, to rule, fr.
κρατόσ
strength: cf. F.
plutocratie
.]
A form of government in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of the wealthy classes; government by the rich; also, a controlling or influential class of rich men.

Definition 2024


plutocracy

plutocracy

English

Alternative forms

  • plousiocracy
  • ploutocracy

Noun

plutocracy (plural plutocracies)

  1. Government by the wealthy.
  2. A controlling class of the wealthy.

Quotations

  • 1933G. K. Chesterton, All I Survey, Essay XXIII: On Industrialism
    Modernity is not democracy; machinery is not democracy; the surrender of everything to trade and commerce is not democracy. Capitalism is not democracy; and is admittedly, by trend and savour, rather against democracy. Plutocracy by definition is not democracy. But all these modern things forced themselves into the world at about the time, or shortly after the time, when great idealists like Rousseau and Jefferson happened to have been thinking about the democratic ideal of democracy.

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