Wealth and Democracy

BILL MOYERS: With me now is a man who has been tracking the political and economic history of American wealth for a long time. Kevin Phillips and I were both young men in Washington in the 60s. We were on different sides but had a mutual interest in politics that reached workaday people. He was the chief political strategist for Richard Nixon's victory in 1968 and wrote the bombshell book on the emerging republican majority. Ten years ago his best-selling book on the politics of rich and poor influenced the 1992 elections. In his new book, WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY, he is writing about how big money and political power are the invisible hand in the hidden story of the American experience. Good to see you again.

Good to see you again.

KEVIN PHILLIPS: Nice to be here.

BILL MOYERS: You keep referring in "Wealth and Democracy" to a plutocracy. What do you mean by that?

KEVIN PHILLIPS: Well, the plutocracy ... and I think we have one now and we didn't, uh, 12 years ago when I wrote THE POLITICS OF RICH AND POOR is when money has ceased just entertaining itself with leveraged buyouts and all the stuff they did in the '80s, and really takes over politics, and takes it over on both sides when money not only talks, money screams. When you start developing philosophies in which giving a check is a First Amendment right. That's incredible. Uh, but what you've got is that this is what money has done. It's produced the fusion of money and government. And that is plutocracy.

BILL MOYERS: But hasn't money always held politics hostage?

KEVIN PHILLIPS: Well, it's usually been very influential. And sometimes it really hasn't been too influential,

But what we've seen in the, uh ... the '80s and '90s is that it's taken control of both parties, pretty much taken control of the culture, and controls the whole dynamics of politics. And that is ...