plutocracy

In practice, it's closer to a plutocracy and has been for some time.

Lawyers act on behalf of clients that can afford to employ them, so I'd call it a plutocracy.

It's a bad time to be any agent acting against the plutocracy that rules the world as it is today.

Doesn't the headline say "moving toward plutocracy" and the quote is: "we have moved in my lifetime towards a plutocracy"?

It is not the first time Buffett used the "plutocracy" word:Dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise.

We do not have a plutocracy, I want to emphasize that, but the distribution of wealth and the influence of wealth have moved in that direction.

That money buys power, and the "shining light" of democracy is just a plutocracy much like their own system... That IS brutal, but not in the way you think.

This OP works on the front lines at the EFF. Most nerds are smart enough to be disillusioned by the plutocracy we live in. If by "do something" you mean sit-ins, marches, protests, and whatnot, you have only to look at the Occupy movement.

The quote in question is weaker than the headline might suggest:"We are still a democracy, but we have moved in my lifetime towards a plutocracy.

I want to live in a society in which there is equal opportunity, not a plutocracy with a handful of perpetual dynasties.

That seems like an accurate summary of his sentiment; it's not saying that we have actually reached a plutocracy, just that that's the trajectory.

It's not perfect, but it does allow for a great deal of social mobility where society would otherwise resemble something like plutocracy.

Take an ordinary democracy and say that you can't vote if your net worth is negative; what you get is, at least in my opinion, a bad democracy but still a democracy. But say that you can't vote unless your net worth is in the top 5% of the population and you've got a plutocracy.

[1]Just because Futarchy is vulnerable to some of the same problems as democracy as practiced in the USA doesn't mean it is a bad system, but I fail to see how it is functionally different than a plutocracy.

Indeed, from my perspective -- as a European of East-Asian stock and traveling between the two regions -- the US looks more and more like a plutocracy, not unlike post-communist Russia, and not like a liberal democracy.

On the other hand, most of us who are awake deeply desire an end to the culturally underaccomplished, corrupt plutocracy that has brought a nation to epic embarrassment and idiotic, endless war to two foreign countries.