Meanings
plural plutonomies
- countablederogatorysometimesuncountableThe study of the production and distribution of wealth, or a society seen as dominated by such concerns.First known use 19th c.
On this side it [Socialism] is a crude compromise between the claims of labour and of capital — the hybrid child of Plutonomy and Communism.
1866, Frederic Harrison, “Industrial Co-operation”, in The Fortnightly Review, volume III, page 4992 more examples
The [Citigroup] analysts argued that the United States was evolving into a “plutonomy”—a top-heavy economic system where growth is driven primarily by a tiny, prosperous elite who consume an ever larger fraction of everything the economy produces.
2015, Martin Ford, The Rise of the Robots, Oneworld, →ISBN, page 198Since his [Ajay Kapur's] very first paper in 2005—and he has kept publishing them, through a series of different employers—he has highlighted the fact that, in its essence, plutonomy is about inequality.
2018, Oliver Bullough, chapter 17, in Moneyland, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 240
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
From pluto- + -nomy. Google’s n-gram search suggests the Plutonomy was coined in late 1800s. References to the term using n-gram can be found in books as early as 1851, in a book written by John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow titled “Christian Socialism and Its opponents”, where it was used in the context of wealth. In modern use popularized by Ajay Kapur in a series of papers published during his tenure as Citigroup’s global strategist.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
plutonomy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/plutonomy
“plutonomy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/plutonomy. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “plutonomy,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/plutonomy.
Source: plutonomy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.