Blair Fix - on American plutocracy · Rebel Economist (Free)

Blair Fix - on American plutocracy

Fix has just published what looks like a masterwork - about 15,000 words analysing the emergence (or should that be re-emergence?) of plutocracy in America in recent decades.

See - https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2025/01/31/partisan-politics-and-the-road-to-plutocracy/

He starts by quoting the Ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch, saying -

" [H]e who has more than enough and yet hungers for still more will find no remedy in gold or silver … for his ailment is not poverty, but insatiability and avarice. — Plutarch, ‘On love of wealth’ "

Fix continues - "As billionaires dance in the halls of the second Trump administration, it’s haunting how well Plutarch’s two-thousand-year-old words describe the state of American politics. It’s a barren landscape of plutocratic insatiability. How did it get this way?".

Fix's 'near-book' is as usual replete with diagrams, graphs and data. It has a useful 'Contents' section, showing how broad-ranging his analysis is. He concludes with what I think is an ingenious and revealing metaphor, saying -

"In my mind, this evidence illustrates how the trappings of democracy can be used to ensconce plutocracy. As the rich get richer, they use their time and resources to become information-sucking machines. Meanwhile, as the poor get poorer, they fall into a pit of political ignorance where they become easy victims of propaganda. In a sense, this asymmetry is why reactionary politics are so easy, and why progressive politics are so difficult. Reactionary politics push snake oil downhill. Progressive politics push knowledge and solidarity uphill.".

It's Greek myrh rather than philosphy, but maybe Fix should have ended his analysis with Sisyphus, condemned to push a great mass uphill during the day, only to have it roll back down overnight.

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