Job Losses and Pandemic Profiteers.' Accessed July 26, 2021.Д¬NBC. ' The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Small Businesses,' Accessed July 26, 2021. ' Pandemic Revives Calls To Ban Lawmakers From Bunking In Their Offices,' Accessed July 26, 2021. ' Majority of Lawmakers in 116th Congress Are Millionaires.' Accessed July 26, 2021. ' How Increasing Wealth Concentration and Inequality Leads to Less Generous State Welfare Policies.' Accessed July 26, 2021.Д¬enter for Responsive Politics. ' Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.' Accessed July 26, 2021. ' American Plutocracy.' Accessed July 26, 2021.Д¬ambridge University. ' Wealth of Congress: Richer Than Ever, but Mostly at the Very Top.' Accessed July 26, 2021. The concern of inadvertently creating a plutocracy is that the regulatory focus will be narrow and concentrated on the goals of the wealthy, creating even more income and asset-based inequality. Instead, it can be created through the allowance of access to certain programs and educational resources only to the wealthy, thereby making it so that the wealthy hold more sway. Plutocracy doesn't have to be a purposeful, overt format for government. Plutocracy is not to be confused with oligarchy, which defines a political structure in which power is concentrated within a small group of people that are not necessarily wealthy.

The Roman Empire was considered a form of plutocracy in which a Senate consisting of the wealthy aristocracy had the power to elect local administration officials and propose new policies. Plutocracy has been present since ancient times.Commentators state that rising income inequality has converted America into a plutocracy, with Congress getting richer on average.Indirectly, plutocracy can take the form of regulatory frameworks and programs designed to benefit only the wealthy.Plutocracy is a system of rule by the wealthy, directly or indirectly.

Plutocracy vs oligarchy