Dollarocracy
Dollarocracy: a system of government where private wealth determines political outcomes. Sound at all familiar? The corruption bred by boatloads of cash contaminates and pollutes our entire political process. So-called reforms won’t cure the ailment. Radical surgery is required. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood this well when he counseled, “Timid supplications for justice will not solve the problem. We’ve got to massively confront the power structure.” Washington is Lobbystan. The thousands of influence peddlers pretty much get what they want for their paymasters. Elections matter little. That’s because, as McChesney and Nichols say, “Powerful interests—freed to, in effect, buy elections, set the rules of engagement. Those interests so dominate politics that the squabbling of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, is a sideshow to the great theater of plutocracy and plunder.” Democracy has been sold down the river.
Recorded at the University of Colorado.
Speakers
Robert McChesney
Robert McChesney was a leading media historian and public intellectual. He was a professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and later was the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He was co-founder of Free Press, a non-profit organization working to increase public participation in media policy debates. His work focused on the role of journalism and democracy in a capitalist system. An activist scholar, he was a champion of independent progressive media. Noam Chomsky said, “Robert McChesney’s work has been of extraordinary importance. It should be read with care and concern by people who care about freedom and basic rights.” A prolific author, among his many books are Rich Media, Poor Democracy, Blowing the Roof off the Twenty-First Century, and Digital Disconnect. He is co-author with John Nichols of Dollarocracy and People Get Ready. Robert McChesney passed away in late March 2025.
John Nichols
John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation. A contributing writer for The Progressive, he is also the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. He is co-author with Robert McChesney of Dollarocracy. Gore Vidal said of him: “Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert John Nichols’s sword is the sharpest.”
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