As nouns the difference between oligarchy and plutocracy
is that oligarchy is a government run by only a few, often the wealthy while plutocracy is government by the wealthy.
oligarchy
English
Noun
(
wikipedia oligarchy)
(
oligarchies)
A government run by only a few, often the wealthy.
Those who make up an oligarchic government.
A state ruled by such a government.
Related terms
* oligarch
* oligarchic
* oligarchical
plutocracy
Alternative forms
* plousiocracy
* ploutocracy
Noun
(plutocracies)
Government by the wealthy.
A controlling class of the wealthy.
Quotations
* 1933 — , Essay XXIII: ''On Industrialism
*: Modernity is not democracy; machinery is not democracy; the surrender of everything to trade and commerce is not democracy. Capitalism is not democracy; and is admittedly, by trend and savour, rather against democracy. Plutocracy by definition is not democracy. But all these modern things forced themselves into the world at about the time, or shortly after the time, when great idealists like Rousseau and Jefferson happened to have been thinking about the democratic ideal of democracy.
Synonyms
* argentocracy (nonce word)
* tycoonocracy (uncommon)
Related terms
* plutocrat
* plutocratic
* plutodemocracy
* plutonomy