Let’s take three models of Western government: the Westminster model, the American model and the German model (mostly because I’m relatively ignorant of German politics).
To what extent is wealth a prerequisite for success (i.e. becoming Prime Minister, President or Chancellor) in each of these models and why?
In any democratic society to get elected you usually need to have a good network of friends in politics. Being able to establish such a network more or less requires some personal success as a prerequisite.
In neither of the systems you listed can someone reach the top post in government as just a common man off the street, they have to have connections, and the very act of forming powerful connections and making friends in politics tends to by its nature make one successful by at least some metrics.
Calling it a chrysocracy is a bit off-base though. You don’t have to be wealthy, you juts have to be influential. The two seem to go hand in hand but not necessarily so, Clinton was well-off but he was not what most people would qualify as “rich” prior to being elected President.
In Germany, being rich does not get you to the top (the postwar chancellors came from a middle class/some from a working class family. Gerhard Schröder’s mother raised her kids as a cleaning woman).
Significant wealth (above six figures) would be a liability in running for political office, if anything.
After the end of your political career you can cash in via books/speaking deals/board seats.
Where money does get you influence in politics isn’t in attaining political office yourself but rather in influencing public opinion. For example, the Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft is a PR organization founded by an employers’ organization, with planned funding 2000-2010 of € 100 million. It uses this money to promote a Dooh Nibor agenda (i.e. lower taxes, less unemployment benefits, universities to intruduce tuition fees, etc.), by overt means (ads), semi-overt ones (placing speakers at conferences) and covert ones (in 2002 they paid € 58k to introduce pro-market messages into a popular TV soap).
Maggie Thatcher and John Major both came from modest, middle-class backgrounds.
Tony Blair was from a comfortable middle-class family, but did not have millions of dollars behind him.
Gordon Brown’s father was a priest.
So in Westminster - since 1979 at least - you don’t need vast sums of cash to become politcally succesful.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about Bill Clinton, he was almost entirely self-made. His family wasn’t just not well off, they were bonafide white trash. His paternity has always been in question because his mother liked to play the field so to speak. He assumed his abusive stepfather’s last name and had to protect his half-brother Roger from him. I have been through Hope, AR several times because I grew up reasonably close by. It is poor as well and hardly a cosmopolitan metropolis.
People do need connections to make it to the top but that is the way politics works. Given that people who weren’t born to wealthy and influential families do it, I have to say the OP is off-base.
I’d just like to point out that Clinton’s uncle, Raymond Clinton, owned a car dealership in Hot Springs, and was considered a power player in that town’s political scene. So, familial success and connections did exist for Mr. Clinton, his “hardscrabble roots persona” notwithstanding.
Off base? I’m not even asserting anything in the OP, so how can it be off-base? It’s an OP asking a question, not stating an opinion.
True, but by the time he became powerful I think we was pretty wealthy - maybe not spectacularly so, but well off.
Except a guy who owns a business and is a local bigwig isn’t exactly a plutocrat. Bill Clinton’s uncle was not a plutocrat, his uncle’s money didn’t fund Bill’s political career.
Let’s take the presidents of the modern era:
George the Younger: Pluutocrat
Bill Clinton: not a plutocrat
George the Elder: Plutocrat
Ronald Reagan: not a plutocrat
Jimmy Carter: Owned a farm. Not a plutocrat.
Gerald Ford: Stepfather was a salesman for a family paint firm. Well off but not a plutocrat.
Richard Nixon: Family owned a small store. Not a plutocrat.
Lyndon Johnson: Family was well connected. Arguable plutocrat.
John Kennedy: Plutocrat.
Eisenhower: Father was an engineer, not a plutocrat.
Truman: Tailor’s son. Not a plutocrat.
Roosevelt: Plutocrat.
So while we have several presidents from extremely rich families, most of them weren’t. Were all presidents relatively financially successful by the time they became president? Sure. Do you expect a day laborer or waitresses to get elected president? You’ve got to have something on the ball to reach the presidency. And note that even the arguable plutocrats didn’t go directly from managing the family business to the presidency, all had histories of public service behind them already, in all cases except Kennedy and Bush Jr., long histories. And in the case of Bush Jr, it wasn’t the family money that bought him the presidency, it was the family connections.
So vast family wealth is not a requirement to becoming president, it is not a requirement for any public office. People from lots of family backgrounds reach high public office. The fact that the people in public office are never dirt poor when the reach public office only means that their talents brought them success, if their talents could not bring them success then why the public vote for them? I know plenty of smart, interesting people who aren’t successful, but none of them would make a good president, senator or governor.
Why coin a word like “chrysocracy” when we already have a word, “plutocracy,” that means the same thing?
Huh? I’ve hardly coined it.
I think people put too much stock in the elected officials.
I would argue that in Western Democracies the elected officials are rarely the most powerful people in the nation. It is the oligarchs behind the scenes who actually manage and own the nation’s infrastructure and interests that are truly the powers. They were powerful before the election and will be powerful after. An elected official is only powerful due to their elected position.
George HW Bush for instance was a powerful man regardless of elected position and personal wealth. It’s not really about what wealth you control directly, but what wealth you can influence. Of course being VP and President made him MORE powerful, but he had significant influence long before holding any elected office, from the Kuwaitis giving him the contracts that started Zapata Oil, to his management/mismanagement of the Bay of Pigs.
The oligarchs of the world, the old moneyed aristocracy manage and filter money through intricate banking networks, wealth hidden behind wealth, managed by proxies through various funds.
People scoff at ‘Bilderberger’ or Trilateral mentions, but organizations like these, with conferences such as Sun Valley in Idaho are where the wealthiest of the wealthy get together to make agreements and do deals. These are not at all responsible to the will of an electorate, and they represent the wealthy oligarchs of many nations the world over.
People love to watch Washington and Brussels, while most people are pretty ignorant of what goes on in Davos and Dubai.
It is my opinion that Democracy is quite subordinate to Capitalism. Not to say that a Democratic movement couldn’t excercise its will beyond the means of capitalism, but that the likelihood of a mass movement of people speaking up with a unified voice capable of challenging the chrysocracy is quite low.
Hmm… Russia, 1917? Germany between WW1 and WW2? Mexico just recently?
I don’t disagree with that statement, and I didn’t mean to assert that the Clintons were plutocrats. Indeed, Lemur866, I agree with your sentiment that a prerequisite for success in politics is generally personal success in business.
I merely pointed out Clinton’s well-connected Uncle to refute Shagnasty’s assertion that “His [Clinton’s] family wasn’t just not well off, they were bonafide white trash.” While Bill Clinton would like us all to believe he was just a poor boy from Hope, he actually had some help along the way (how else do you explain affording a Georgetown/Yale education, with a stop in Oxford along the way). I don’t say this to be critical of Clinton, but rather to clarify the record.
Was it not scholarships?
The last “poor” candidate was Jimmy Carter, who always complains he was too honest to exit the presidency with more money than he entered. Nobody else had done that since Andrew Johnson. But he was a millionaire farmer going in. Although, a millionaire farmer may have outstanding crop loans worth more than his farm.
Is the assertion that Presidents use their position to amass personal fortunes? No it isn’t. The assertion/question is whether only the extremely wealthy can attain political office. And of course, this is nonsense.
Damn me and my unsubstantiated words. Okay, while I can’t exactly back up the sentiment that Bill Clinton’s uncle paid his way through school, I still attest to the fact that Bill Clinton did not live a poor, white trash existence in tiny little Hope, Arkansas. He was raised in Hot Springs, where his uncle was a big shot.
Rarely in life do people succeed without springboarding off of the success of others. Does this mean that those who reach the Presidency are necessary culled from only the richest and most elite? I don’t think so, but I also don’t think we will find many examples of Presidents who didn’t have some success and privilege somewhere in their background, even if it was of their own making. In Clinton’s case, some of his success must surely be attributed to the support network that helped raise him.
It’s difficult to see how someone who has the ambition and ability to become president would not amass a fortune.
Did Clinton’s uncle being a big cheese and auto dealer in Hot Springs, Arkansas (population 37,847) help him get to those good schools, his Rhodes scholarship, his Governorship, his two Presidential terms? Or was it the Clinton’s own talent? I just don’t know!