Is America Plutocrazy?

Recently, I came a cross an article by Michael Brenner with overwhelming evidence that America is not a republic but a plutocracy. Although it is clear that the author of this article was very opinionated, I could not help but find the mountains of evidence persuading. He seems to address every aspect of a plutocracy and how America fits into that category, he goes on for pages. To challenge your view of what America calls its government, read this article. 

Throughout my research for my paper I have come across a common problem of billionaires lobbying and paying for campaigns. As Robert Reich says in "Inequality for All", it seems to be that in these  days you can "buy your own president!" Once a billionaire funds for a certain campaign, that candidate is in moral debt to them. The billionaire will have control over them or at least some of the decisions they make in office. After searching for Obama's lobby reform, I found that Obama is trying to combat this aspect of the plutocracy. In his words, he "will not drown out the voices of the American people.” Although his efforts to end this issue have not been as successful as he expected, the simple effort shows something about both sides of it. 

When Brenner addresses the end goal of a plutocracy, he says it is to "legitimize itself by fixing in the minds of society the idea that money is the measure of all things." This point was the one that mainly made me question my own views. In this country, prices are on nearly every item and based on what you can buy, you might as well have your own price tag. Is America not a materialistic nation? Does wealth not determine your class and how much you are worth? Although I was reluctant to think that this was true, I could not deny it when looking around my own neighborhood. 

Taking into account the opinions of Brenner and matching it up to reality was hard to do without doing an immense amount of individual research on America. Still, Brenner left me questioning the society I live in and whether it really is a republic, or actually a plutocracy.