(1974) - Democracy for the Few - Michael Parenti

Textbook cover for Democracy for the Few 9th ed by Micheal Parenti. The title is in bold, green letters against a white background. A shady of the Statue of Liberty from a lower angle is depicted, with an image of a man on a park bench under trees inside the shadow.

(1974) - Democracy for the Few - Michael Parenti

What happens when policy changes but power doesn’t? That’s the question political scientist Michael Parenti examines in . He argues that reforms like civil rights laws, social programs, and workplace protections, while real and hard-won, remain fragile because they leave the underlying distribution of wealth and power untouched. Policy, he shows, is only as durable as the popular pressure sustaining it, and concentrated economic interests are always poised to undermine or reverse gains that threaten their dominance. Real change, he contends, requires addressing the systemic inequalities embedded in the political and economic order, not mistaking concessions for transformation. 

To read more of Parenti's work, see .

The plutocracy tolerates reforms, sometimes even initiates them, so long as they do not infringe upon the basic system of corporate property and class power.

Micheal Parenti