plutonomy

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English

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Etymology

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From pluto- +‎ -nomy. Google’s n-gram search suggests the Plutonomy was coined in late 1800s.[1] References to the term using n-gram can be found in books as early as 1851, in a book written by John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow titled “Christian Socialism and Its opponents”, where it was used in the context of wealth.

In modern use popularized by Ajay Kapur in a series of papers published during his tenure as Citigroup’s global strategist.[2]

Noun

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plutonomy (countable and uncountable, plural plutonomies)

  1. (sometimes derogatory) The study of the production and distribution of wealth, or a society seen as dominated by such concerns. [from 19th c.]
    • 1866, Frederic Harrison, “Industrial Co-operation”, in The Fortnightly Review, volume III, page 499:
      On this side it [Socialism] is a crude compromise between the claims of labour and of capital — the hybrid child of Plutonomy and Communism.
    • 2015, Martin Ford, The Rise of the Robots, Oneworld, →ISBN, page 198:
      The [Citigroup] analysts argued that the United States was evolving into a “plutonomy”—a top-heavy economic system where growth is driven primarily by a tiny, prosperous elite who consume an ever larger fraction of everything the economy produces.
    • 2018, Oliver Bullough, chapter 17, in Moneyland, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 240:
      Since his [Ajay Kapur's] very first paper in 2005—and he has kept publishing them, through a series of different employers—he has highlighted the fact that, in its essence, plutonomy is about inequality.

Derived terms

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References

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  1. ^ plutonomy at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
  2. ^ Robert Frank (2007 January 8) “Plutonomics”, in Wall Street Journal blog:Ajay Kapur, global strategist at Citigroup, and his research team came up with the term “Plutonomy” in 2005 to describe a country that is defined by massive income and wealth inequality. According to their definition, the U.S. is Plutonomy, along with the U.K., Canada and Australia.