Plutocracy, by its very nature, invites vicious lobbying for special favors, legislation, exclusive franchise and monopoly privileges, by all sorts of diverse economic groups which seek to enhance their economic positions, not through the market, but through political privileges designed to "get around the market." Economically, this is disastrous since monopoly privileges fetter competitive enterprise and deter economic growth. Politically, plutocracy turns the legitimate functions and powers of government into a political "blackjack" to be wielded by the wealthiest pressure groups against their enemies, and eventually, the rest of the population. It practically assures political graft and corruption, the undermining of governmental morality, and the general deterioration of any serious respect for the ideas of republican government. In fact, civil liberty becomes incompatible with the aims and methods of plutocracy. Looked at from any angle, plutocracy is:
. . . the most sordid and debasing form of political energy known. . . In its motive, its processes, its code, and its sanctions, it is infinitely corrupting to all institutions which ought to preserve and protect society.
Thus, Sumner fears plutocracy because this unholy alliance of political and economic power will most assuredly destroy his conception of civil liberty and republican government, and his vision of an efficient, rational economic system capable of change and growth. Given these facts, the only wise and intelligent policy in the field of political economy is to minimize to the utmost the relations of government to industry. Sumner believes that a separation of state and market--like church and state--will "cut the ground from under plutocracy."
--Dominick Thomas Armentano, "The Political Economy of William Graham Sumner: A Study in the History of Free-Enterprise Ideas" (PhD diss., University of Connecticut, 1966), 68-69.
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