CEOs under the Trump administration explode the myth of "plutocracy"
Is America in the grips of a plutocracy? In a new piece for The Hill, ARI's Ben Bayer shows that, on the contrary, business leaders are afraid to oppose policies destroying their businesses because they fear further political punishment.
According to a popular view on the political left, businessmen want to control the government and our lives in service of their profits. So when a businessman like Donald Trump becomes president, it might seem to confirm their worst fears about “plutocracy.”
But since Trump assumed office, not many CEOs resemble plutocrats. If anything, they’ve been treated as pawns, not kings.
And don't miss a recent podcast discussion of this topic between Bayer and Onkar Ghate, where they discuss:
How CEOs’ silence in the face of Trump’s destructive tariff policies debunks the myth of plutocracy;
How threats from the Trump administration instill fear in America’s top producers;
How attacks on Zuckerberg and other CEOs reveal that business has no allies;
Why businessmen are not the rulers of the system but the pawns;
The urgent need for business leaders to stand up for themselves.