Building a plutocracy?

[jjordan]

Plutocrat is basically a political prestige class that lets you substitute gold pieces for a system's usual governing stat. For example, feudalism is based on Strength and Charisma, but a Plutocrat can just buy a bunch of mercenaries to fight for him without having to earn their loyalty. To make a de facto plutocracy, just start with any other system and then let people cheat by throwing money at it. To make a de jure plutocracy, just make wealth the basis of the system such as a democracy where you get one vote for each gold piece you contribute to the state treasury.

This is probably the easiest way to address the issue and the best way of encapsulating it in game terms that I've seen.

[Dienekes]

So every Feudal Government is actually a plutocracy.

A plutocracy is "rule by the wealthy". All wealth is is having more resources than other people and in every feudal system the landlord (nobility) have the wealth and the commonfolk (serfs) do not.

European feudal system started as a pure plutocracy.

I consider this parcel of land to be mine
I develop the resources to fight off anybody else who denies that
I work and develop the resources of that land
I start making others do that work for me
I pass it on to my children and to their children
Continue until someone else takes it from my children's children.

In your fantasy world you are stating that a class of people who were NOT hereditary wealthy grew in wealth by establishing, dominating, controlling and exploiting a new resource. So now they are the new nobles.

As for what titles to use? Normally, in real life, when a merchant-class rose in power to the level of the hereditary nobility that already existed the craved the titles of that existing nobility as a status symbol. So they found ways to buy the titles of duke and earl and prince and so on. So the easiest solution would be to just use existing titles.

That's not really fun though, so if I was you i'd have them make up their own titles.

CEO
CIO
CSO
Manager
Superintendant
Supervisor

I would use corporate titles as a starting point

That's not necessarily how it worked. Especially at the beginning and ends of feudal societies. The whole "I have land first then I develop the resources to fight to defend" it may actually be backwards. One of the (several) models for the start of feudalism has the band of warriors created first before the lands were parceled out.

A powerful war leader emerges, gets people to fight for them, uses those people to gain land and resources, then distributes those resources among the remaining warriors so long as they remain loyal to him. In theory, the lord can then take those lands back and redistribute them so long as he remains the most powerful military figure. Though of course as tradition and increased power of the other warriors that were once loyal to the central figure develops that becomes less likely.

Now during the height of a successful feudal state, it can look pretty much like a plutocracy. But that's largely because the keys of power: land ownership, was the premier method of acquiring wealth. But that's not unusual, for any political system. Those in charge gain wealth while they're in charge. Happens seemingly regardless of the political system in place.

But the comparison of a feudal society to a plutocracy also breaks down toward the end of a successful feudal societies existence. Going by European history, the rising wealth of the middle class saw a particularly interesting period in France where the richest merchants were actually much wealthier than their feudal lords whose lands had started acquiring more debt than they were creating wealth. But they were still not allowed from entering the established governing bodies. At least at first.

Anyway, to create a functioning plutocracy Xuc Xac has the right idea. But I'd look at systems that required a specific wealth standard to be considered a part of the political system. Or where the classes were divided based on wealth, with the only real means of increasing your class would be to gain wealth. Also bribing being a considered normal and accepted part of the political process. The tail end of the Roman Republic, while not -technically- a plutocracy* can give you a decent image of what one might look like.

*It was possible to increase your class through means outside of wealth. Though by the end doing so became increasingly unlikely.

[The Pilgrim]

But the question I had was...
How does an actual plutocracy work? (what are the titles and honorifics and so on of people who hold their position due to wealth, and not some royal lineage? Are there any true historical examples or are all of them only de-facto plutocracies with other forms of nominal, heavily corrupt governance?)

Perhaps it could be useful for you to look at western liberal parlamentary systems of the early industrial revolution. Those countries were ruled by elective parliaments, but the right to vote was only granted to those who meet very harsh property prerrequisites. The right to be a candidate for public office was even more restricted. The rationale was that only those who had something at stake were legitimated to have a voice in the goverment, and particulary only those who contributed to the public treasury (that is, who paid taxes) were legitimated to have a voice about how to expend it. (Interestingly enough, in the US the requisite of presenting a poll tax for voting was only fully abolished with the 26th amendment in 1971).

The best example is the UK. After the 1832 reform act, that shifted power from the hereditary House of Lords to the elected House of Commons, only 20% of the adult male population had the right to vote. This decreased to about 14% by the sixties due to the demographic explosion, with the 1867 reform act increasing voting rights to 28% of the adult male population by decreasing the wealth requisites. They were again decreased in 1884 to allow voting rights to about 60% adult males, and were dropped altogether in 1918 in the same reform that allowed women to vote (albeit with property requeriments that were not dropped until 1928). As we are talking about male suffrage only, that means in the early XIX century less than 10% of people could vote in the UK, and under 30% could before as late as 1918.

In the US, voting rights during the same era varied wildy by state. In 1800 some had universal male suffrage while others had property requeriments restrincting the vote to about 6% adult males of european descent.

Other european and latin american countries provide a variety of additional examples on restricted voting rights by property. So a parlamentary system with voting rights based on demonstrable wealth and not family lineage, is something that has actually existed in the real world.

Another concept that you may find useful, is Sortition. The selection of public officials from the population chosen at random. This system was used in the Athenian Democracy precisely to avoid corruption, for them this was the more democratic system to elect the magistrates. Some western european cities in the XV-XVIII centuries also resorted to chosing the public magistrates by sortition, albeit from a pool resricted to citzens from the affluent class, to prevent both corruption and the city being torn apart in internal infighting for power among the powerful families. In particular, this system of chosing the public officials at random from the wealthy local families was widely used in the Spanish Empire until 1700 (promoted by the officials of the monarchy themselves, who were fed up on having to intervene to stop local family feud wars that were just thinly disguised struggles for control of the city).

[Segev]

A combination of Sortition to select a candidate pool and then a plutocratic bid for those who have made it into the pool to be actually elected could be interesting. I'm not sure how effective, but interesting.

Essentially, anybody could throw money into piles linked to the randomly-chosen candidates, and whichever candidate got the most money behind his name winds up in the seat.

[Beleriphon]

Could the state charge a transfer of deed processing fee on each sale or inheritance of land?

Some interesting stories there when surprise, recently deceased parent was broke and didn't leave anything to cover the fee.

I was more thinking the state takes back the lander upon death of the current owner and auctions it off and keeps the proceeds. Anybody can buy the voting rights by paying the previous owner's costs plus ten percent. The state allocates the original cost to the first owner, and keeps the extra. The first person can of course out bid the potential owner.

Another way to go is to only make voting right sales only available every five years when everybody has to buy them again. I'd make it expensive enough that each land block is de facto going to the last rights owner, but if they can't pay or they're dead then somebody else can step in. If the vote buying is at fixed intervals then a votes might be missing for years at a time if somebody dies shortly after they buy their voting rights.

[Gallowglass]

First: I heart this discussion.

Most of the ideas for buying voting rights though, are going to fall apart within a couple generations without some kind of actual anti-monopoly regulations. Because wealth accretes rapidly into small numbers of wealth owners. Without anti-monopoly regulations, for example, we'd be living in the Rockefeller/Ford States of America. (That's History, not politics)

In our hypothetical plutocracy, the richest people would buy the initial voting rights, use them to shore up their own business interests and familial wealth-chain and make it so that they would never be able to be outbid again. Failing some outside wealth-source being spontaneously used to undermine their system.

So, you'd have to constitutionalize some kind of anti-monopoly weights and measures to keep that from happening, and to keep the super wealthy from buying proxy votes to get past the constitutional constraints.

Or else you end up in an institutional aristocracy within one, maybe two generations. (which, is I guess, what I was trying to say when I compared it to feudalism. Whatever. We own things, you don't. you work for us.)

To keep this an interesting premise, I like the idea of constitutionalizing no possible transfer of wealth through descendants and distributing wealth upon death in some impartialized manner that can't be easily circumvented. I like this because it creates an adversarial relationship between generations rather than a paternistic one. The current rich fear their children who have no reason to cozy up to them and every reason to force transfer through assassination. Lots of early deaths. Also it serves to "even the playing field" a bit to keep control from being monopolized which is a real concern.

I might even go a step further and suggest that governmental decrees bought and paid for by the current vote-buyers don't survive the death of their sponsors. A new law lasts only as long as the congress that passed it does.

[Segev]

Gallowglass, while that's interesting, the "interesting"ness of it arises from a great deal of instability. And unstable governments just don't last more than a generation, if at all, because they lose support from the very people who run it.

The points about an entrenched aristocracy are absolutely true, however: give government the power to regulate and control business interests, and the wealthy will flock to government to keep their competitors from catching up and to ensure nobody can ever get the power to run their industries away from them.

If you want constitutional controls that will have limiting effects, they need to be on the actual powers of the government, no matter who "owns" it. Which is its own delicate bundle of "who enforces these limits?"

[Max_Killjoy]

Gallowglass, while that's interesting, the "interesting"ness of it arises from a great deal of instability. And unstable governments just don't last more than a generation, if at all, because they lose support from the very people who run it.

The points about an entrenched aristocracy are absolutely true, however: give government the power to regulate and control business interests, and the wealthy will flock to government to keep their competitors from catching up and to ensure nobody can ever get the power to run their industries away from them.

If you want constitutional controls that will have limiting effects, they need to be on the actual powers of the government, no matter who "owns" it. Which is its own delicate bundle of "who enforces these limits?"

Yeah, can't get into it much more than that here, but for anyone interested, look up "regulatory capture" and "de jure monopoly". They're absolutely germane to the topic, but probably safest to read about rather than discuss here.

It's always a bit of a hirewire act.

[jjordan]

First: I heart this discussion.

Most of the ideas for buying voting rights though, are going to fall apart within a couple generations without some kind of actual anti-monopoly regulations. Because wealth accretes rapidly into small numbers of wealth owners. Without anti-monopoly regulations, for example, we'd be living in the Rockefeller/Ford States of America. (That's History, not politics)

In our hypothetical plutocracy, the richest people would buy the initial voting rights, use them to shore up their own business interests and familial wealth-chain and make it so that they would never be able to be outbid again. Failing some outside wealth-source being spontaneously used to undermine their system.

So, you'd have to constitutionalize some kind of anti-monopoly weights and measures to keep that from happening, and to keep the super wealthy from buying proxy votes to get past the constitutional constraints.

Or else you end up in an institutional aristocracy within one, maybe two generations. (which, is I guess, what I was trying to say when I compared it to feudalism. Whatever. We own things, you don't. you work for us.)

To keep this an interesting premise, I like the idea of constitutionalizing no possible transfer of wealth through descendants and distributing wealth upon death in some impartialized manner that can't be easily circumvented. I like this because it creates an adversarial relationship between generations rather than a paternistic one. The current rich fear their children who have no reason to cozy up to them and every reason to force transfer through assassination. Lots of early deaths. Also it serves to "even the playing field" a bit to keep control from being monopolized which is a real concern.

I might even go a step further and suggest that governmental decrees bought and paid for by the current vote-buyers don't survive the death of their sponsors. A new law lasts only as long as the congress that passed it does.

Revolution and conquest, in various forms, were historically the means by which such static systems were broken up. You might have a relatively peaceful revolution in which new-wealth rises up and takes the reins from old-wealth. You might have a more violent revolution where the opinions of the general population are inflamed. Conquest could come directly from outside in the form of invading armies or might be in the form of foreign interests supporting/directing elements of the local establishment in their efforts to supplant the effective rulers.

[Gallowglass]

Gallowglass, while that's interesting, the "interesting"ness of it arises from a great deal of instability. And unstable governments just don't last more than a generation, if at all, because they lose support from the very people who run it.

The points about an entrenched aristocracy are absolutely true, however: give government the power to regulate and control business interests, and the wealthy will flock to government to keep their competitors from catching up and to ensure nobody can ever get the power to run their industries away from them.

If you want constitutional controls that will have limiting effects, they need to be on the actual powers of the government, no matter who "owns" it. Which is its own delicate bundle of "who enforces these limits?"

I was under the impression the point of the thought exercise was to build a potential "plutocracy" for use in a role-playing game. (Because that's the only authorized reason on this forum for talking about political theory) In which case the interesting bits are the important bits. And unstability is always interesting.

If I was building this plutocracy and trying to figure out "how can I make this so that it can last multiple generations without turning into hereditary aristocracy and without generating an inevitable collapse or overthrow" I would feel the need to make it so that new rich can rise within the system. For that to happen there has to be some convoluted controls.

If I have the wrong impression of the point of the thought exercise I apologize.

If the discussion is "how would a plutocracy work in real life". Well I find that less interesting. Because the answer is "by turning into a hereditary aristocracy after the first generation." Also, I think its against forum rules

[Gallowglass]

That's not necessarily how it worked. Especially at the beginning and ends of feudal societies. The whole "I have land first then I develop the resources to fight to defend" it may actually be backwards. ...

I just want to point out that you misread what I wrote.

I wrote the starting point as:

"I consider this land to be mine." not "I have land."

I was very deliberate in writing it that way specifically to meet your scenario.

I didn't state that the land "was" mine. In fact, it most certainly isn't. Some other jerkwad thinks its his. So your warlord putting together his war band absolutely "considers" the land he's going to march in to to be his sovereign right.

But that's not important. I just feel like defending myself when I'm contradicted about something I didn't say.

[Beleriphon]

If I was building this plutocracy and trying to figure out "how can I make this so that it can last multiple generations without turning into hereditary aristocracy and without generating an inevitable collapse or overthrow" I would feel the need to make it so that new rich can rise within the system. For that to happen there has to be some convoluted controls.

I think the easiest thing is that you tying whatever system to citizenship. Then the state sets up rules that say that make citizenship that can be purchased with cash, but is so expensive that even the richest family could only realistically only buy citizenship for one of its children, and then setup inheritance rules such that it always gets even split so at best one child can be a citizen due to family ties, but if another one becomes wildly rich and successful on their own they can buy it themselves.

If the discussion is "how would a plutocracy work in real life". Well I find that less interesting. Because the answer is "by turning into a hereditary aristocracy after the first generation." Also, I think its against forum rules

You've basically got the right idea. Wealth accumulates into families because the rules for inheritance basically say they do, if there were other rules, for example the state takes 90% of an individual's estate the other 10% being evening divided among the estate's heirs then we'd be less likely to have a hereditary aristocracy of any kind.

In the end a plutocracy just means that the rich people get to rule. It's just the method of choosing the rules is tied directly to the ability of said rulers to pay. The specifics of the form of how those people rule is whatever you want, I'm personally fond (I think I said this before) of a plutocratic republic. There's a governing body, voiting, and everything is very democratic.... if you happen to be super rich and can buy your way into to the government. The stipulation is of course that anybody that has the money to buy their way in can buy in regardless of whether they've lived in the place for 10 minutes or 1000 years.

[sktarq]

So one of the issues that seems to be coming up is new rich vs the old rich protecting their riches and blocking the new rich to protect their power from replacement of dilution.

Now there is nothing wrong with that tension...it is a good reason for story hooks in an adventure building setup but we also want to promote the system believability so some ideas on rules or cultural norms that could support the system to being more open to newly moneyed buy ins...

If there is no limit to the number of individuals who can buy seats in the governing body. . . But nobody gets more than one vote...besides some rules to prevent straw votes (say nobody with debt can buy) new money would be new potential members for factions of voting blocks to fight over and would thus be seen as a resource... hell it would make sense to sponsor people for them to make big $$$ too so they can buy their way in later and join you in your voting block since they are already part of your patronage and social circle. . . So a good reason to sponsor adventurers.

That since anybody can buy there way in people who make a fortune elsewhere but are shut out of governance can move to your nation and will bring a large portion of the $$$ with them and are likely to spend and invest a lot in the area (and may be required to) thereby enriching the locals...

that sponsored new money somewhat weakens the position of the otherwise dominant central force that the plutocrats buy (non inheritable/transferable) titles from. This may be long term stupid as it weakens the system and stability the plutocrats rely on but can be an advantage today.

That new money individuals are useful and even necessary pawns in the games of the very highest games of the top plutocrats...