SEELANGS Digest - 18 Aug 2008 to 19 Aug 2008 (#2008-299)

[Kirsty McCluskey]

I wish I could provide an answer, but all I can do is confirm that in all my
far too extensive reading of Trotsky (the consummate coiner of phrases) I
never saw him use the word oligarch.  Neither do I recall its use by any of
his predecessors or contemporaries in the denunciation of the overly rich.
Plutocrat sounds far more familiar, and, as you point out, it is in fact the
right term.  Perhaps this use of "oligarch" is relatively new?

Kirsty McCluskey

On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 11:18 AM, STEPHEN PEARL <sbpearl1 at verizon.net>wrote:

> Brian Mason's raising of the topic of "Oligarchs" provides me with a
> welcome peg on which to hang and vent a long-standing - and long suppressed
> -  gripe.
>
>   It also confirms the fact that the use of the word "oligarchs" in the
> Russian media  to describe the major beneficiaries of "prikhvatizatsiya"
> ["grabitization"] has become far too deeply entrenched for the rot to be
> stopped.
>
>   The question is how and why did this fairly learned  Greek word come to
> be chosen for the purpose rather than another which much more aptly
> describes the phenomenon in question, namely "plutocrat". After all, the
> connotation of "oligarch" is that of "a few" keeping "power" in their own -
> collective- hands. As far as I know, there was never a suggestion even by
> their detractors that the Russian "oligarchs" were in some kind of group
> conspiracy to capture and keep political power.  "Plutocrat", on the other
> hand, precisely connotes and highlights the connection between wealth and
> power.
>
>  . Forgive me if I sound grouchy about this, but I guess that a classical
> education has left me with some extra-sensitive nerve endings.
>
>  When was "oligarch" first used for this purpose in the Russian media and
> by whom? Does anyone know?  As to why? An answer to that would be far too
> much to expect.
>
>  I don't exclude the possibility that the word "oligarch" has a history of
> use for similar purposes in Russian that predates the current generation of
> Russian plutocrats?
>
>          Any balm to those abraded nerve endings would be most welcome.
>  Stephen Pearl
>
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