Oligarchy Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Oligarchy is a system of government in which power lies in the hands of a few individuals or a single class. The term oligarkhia comes from the Greek words oligo (few) and arkhos (rule). It entered the political science lexicon through its use in Aristotle’s Politics (1981), in which Aristotle classified governments based upon the number of rulers and whether the rulers ruled in their interest or for the common good. Governments with rulers who ruled only according to their own interests were deemed “corrupt” or “debased” forms of government. An oligarchy is thus a form of government in which power is held by a small group of people (like an aristocracy) that rules only in its interest (unlike an aristocracy). Aristotle noted that oligarchies typically were led by the wealthy, although they could also be the product of heredity or be controlled by military elites; aristocracies, in contrast, were led by what Aristotle considered the “virtuous.”

In more modern usage, an oligarchy, which is usually predicated upon a closed, narrowly based leadership, is generally taken to be the opposite of a democracy, which aspires for political openness, equality, and opportunity for all to participate in political life. However, many political thinkers have pointed to a gap between the rhetoric or ideal of democracy and its actual practice, which, in many respects, may resemble an oligarchy. On the political left, many writers have focused on the tendency for economic elites to emerge as powerful forces in capitalist, democratic states, thereby producing potentially deleterious effects for democratic government. German philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883), for example, argued that the state in capitalist systems reflects the underlying economic reality of the unequal relationship between the bourgeoisie, or capitalists, and the proletariat, or working class; the state thereby becomes little more than what he referred to as the executive committee of the bourgeoisie. Therefore, in Marx’s view, democracy in capitalist states is a sham. In the American context, sociologist C. Wright Mills in The Power Elite (1956) argued that democratic governance was being usurped by linkages between corporations, the military, and the government bureaucracy, all of which were not directly accountable to voters. These institutions, to Mills, hijack the government to serve their own narrow interests at the expense of the common good. Political scientist Charles Lindblom similarly argued in Politics and Markets (1977) that business interests invariably—thanks to their resources—play a “privileged role” in any democratic state, and the political and economic elites conspire to offer a limited number of choices to the public. Although many thought Lindblom went too far in his analysis, the goal of removing the influence of money from politics has been widely advocated, with campaign-finance reform a popular topic in many democratic states.

More general arguments regarding oligarchy were made by Italians Gaetano Mosca (1858–1941) and Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), both considered fathers of the elitist school of politics. In his The Ruling Class (1896), Mosca argued that any sizeable society will be ruled by a small minority, what he called the political class, which possesses superior organizational skills that enable it to take control of the state’s bureaucratic apparatus. Pareto would make a similar argument in The Rise and Fall of Elites (1900), in which he took aim at contemporary ideologies for being smokescreens used to advance the interests of a self-interested elite. Pareto was a skeptic of democracy, arguing that despite the claims by some groups to serve the common good, ultimately all political elites were interested in power only for their own purposes.

Perhaps the most widely cited employment of oligarchy in more modern times was made by German-Italian sociologist Robert Michels (1876–1936). In his classic work Political Parties (1911), he utilized the German Social Democratic Party as a case study and argued that there is an iron law of oligarchy. He maintained that all large organizations (e.g., political parties, bureaucracies, government institutions, and civic groups) tend to become oligarchic as power concentrates at the top, where leaders have access to information and funds and can thereby direct the organization to their own ends. The fact that Michels observed such a phenomenon in a party ostensibly committed to equality and democracy led him to suggest that real democracy, simply because of the organizational requirements of modern government, is impossible to achieve.

Whereas features of oligarchies can be found virtually everywhere, some political systems, arguably, were or are more obviously oligarchic than others. Apartheid South Africa, in which the minority whites ruled over the majority blacks, was a clear case. Iran, ruled by a small number of Islamic clerics, would also qualify, as would many states that have experienced military government in which a small, unelected clique of military officers runs the government. The term has also been frequently used to describe postcommunist regimes such as Russia or Ukraine where extremely wealthy individuals, or oligarchs, play a leading and often corrupting role in political life.

Bibliography:

Politics. Translated by T. A. Sinclair. New York: Penguin Books, 1981.
Lasch, Christopher. The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995.
Lindblom, Charles. Politics and Markets: The World’s Political Economic Systems. New York: Free Press, 1977.
Michels, Robert. Political Parties. Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1958.
Mills, C.Wright. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956.
Mosca, Gaetano. The Ruling Class. Translated by Hannah Kahn. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939.
Pareto,Vilfredo. The Rise and Fall of Elites. Totowa, N.J.: Bedminster Press, 1968.

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