Not that young of a plutocracy

Quote of the day:

In the United States at the present day, the reverence which the Greeks gave to the oracles and the Middle Ages to the Pope is given to the Supreme Court. Those who have studied the working of the American Constitution know that the Supreme Court is part of the forces engaged in the protection of the plutocracy. But of the men who know this, some are on the side of the plutocracy, and therefore do nothing to weaken the traditional reverence for the Supreme court, while others are discredited in the eyes of the ordinary quiet citizens by being said to be subversive and Bolshevik.

(Bertrand Russell)

That quote is from Russell's Power, a great book on the different kinds of power in political systems. I am totally convinced that the American political system is more of a plutocracy than a democracy, but before reading that book I was under the impression that this shift towards plutocracy is relatively recent (post World War II). Russell's words confirm the writings of Noam Chomsky, Ramsey Clark and others with respect to how plutocratic the US is. However, those words were first published in 1938, and they refer to a constitution that is centuries old. Opposite to what I thought, it seems that the United States of America has been a plutocracy by design, and from day one.

I have to admit that the American constitution and its protected plutocracy are none of my business as an Egyptian citizen. What really concerns me is that the American political system is being promoted as "Democracy" in the Arab world. In spite of all the claims that the US is not pushing hard enough for "Democracy" in the Arab world, a significant shift from military dictatorship to plutocracy can be obviously noticed in the Egyptian political scene in the last few years. After decades under military dictatorship, which was the price we unwillingly paid in return to national independence and some attempts towards social justice, we are now back to square one in the name of that "Democracy" the US is trying to feed us on a silver platter. Well, the silver platters all went to the haves, and as usual, the have-nots already forgot how silver looks.

The road to true democracy in the Arab world is blocked by a lot of barriers, the most significant of which is the American hegemony on the region. As a matter of fact democracy and independence of that hegemony are a "buy one, get the other for free" deal, but for such an offer we will have to pay a lot.