plutogogue
(ˈpluːtəʊgɒg)
[f. Gr. πλοῦτος wealth + ἀγωγός leading, leader, after demagogue.]
A spokesman for the plutocrats; one who justifies or advocates the interests of the wealthy. Hence ˈplutogogy, the rule of plutogogues.
| 1894 Westm. Gaz. 17 Feb. 8/1 Mr. Williams, of Mississippi, said the opponents of the income tax are plutogogues and encouragers of plutogogy. Ibid., A demagogue, he explained, appeals directly to the mob; a plutogogue appeals to the people who buy the mob. 1931 L. Steffens Autobiogr. II. iii. xvi. 474 Since the plutogogues could not fasten any crime on him they fell back on the all-sufficient charge that he was a demagogue. 1937 Sun (Baltimore) 30 Aug. 9/4 Smith called the demagogue, plutogogue and the theogogue, ‘fearful trinity, constituting the very diabolus of democracy’. 1937 News-Week 13 Sept. 20/2 Fascists and Communists did not strike him as any more dangerous than the man he new-named the plutogogue. The philosophy professor defined him as ‘the voice of the wealthy when they can no longer speak for themselves, the successor of the plutocrat of other days’. |