plutonomy

English

Etymology

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

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

References
  1. plutonomy at Google 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.”
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