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Oligarchy (from Ancient Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía) 'rule by few'; from ὀλίγος (olígos) 'few' and ἄρχω (árkhō) 'to rule, command') is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, religious, political, or military control.

Throughout history, power structures considered to be oligarchies have often been viewed as coercive, relying on public obedience or oppression to exist. Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as meaning rule by the rich, contrasting it with aristocracy, arguing that oligarchy was the perverted form of aristocracy.

Types

Types

Minority rule

The consolidation of power by a dominant religious or ethnic minority can be considered a form of oligarchy. Examples include South Africa during apartheid, Liberia under Americo-Liberians, the Sultanate of Zanzibar, and Rhodesia. In these cases, oligarchic rule was often tied to the legacy of colonialism.

In the early 20th century, Robert Michels expanded on this idea in his Iron Law of Oligarchy He argued that even democracies, like all large organizations, tend to become oligarchic due to the necessity of dividing labor, which ultimately results in a ruling class focused on maintaining their power.

Putative oligarchies

Business groups may be considered oligarchies if they meet the following criteria:

• They are the largest private owners in the country.
• They possess sufficient political power to influence their own interests.
• The owners control multiple businesses, coordinating activities across sectors.

Intellectual oligarchies

George Bernard Shaw coined the concept of an intellectual oligarchy in his play Major Barbara (1907). In the play, Shaw criticizes the control of society by intellectual elites and expresses a desire for the empowerment of the common people:

I now want to give the common man weapons against the intellectual man. I love the common people. I want to arm them against the lawyer, the doctor, the priest, the literary man, the professor, the artist, and the politician, who, once in authority, is the most dangerous, disastrous, and tyrannical of all the fools, rascals, and impostors. I want a democratic power strong enough to force the intellectual oligarchy to use its genius for the general good or else perish.

Countries perceived as oligarchies

Jeffrey A. Winters and Benjamin I. Page have described Colombia, Indonesia, Russia, Singapore, Canada and the United States as oligarchies.

The Philippines

During the Presidency of Ferdinand Marcos from 1965 to 1986, several monopolies arose in the Philippines, primarily linked to the Marcos family and their close associates. Analysts have described this period, and even subsequent decades, as an era of oligarchy in the Philippines.

President Rodrigo Duterte, elected in 2016, promised to dismantle the oligarchy during his presidency. However, corporate oligarchy persisted throughout his tenure. While Duterte criticized prominent tycoons such as the Ayalas and Manny Pangilinan, corporate figures allied with Duterte, including Dennis Uy of Udenna Corporation, benefitted during his administration.

Russian Federation

Since the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent Privatization of state-owned assets, a class of Russian oligarchs emerged. These oligarchs gained control of significant portions of the economy, especially in the energy, metals, and natural resources sectors. Many of these individuals maintained close ties with government officials, particularly the president, leading some to characterize modern Russia as an oligarchy intertwined with the state.

Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran, established after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, is sometimes described as a clerical oligarchy. Its ruling system, known as Velayat-e-Faqih (Governance of the Jurist), places power in the hands of a small group of high-ranking Shia clerics, led by the Supreme Leader. This group holds significant influence over the country's legislative, military, and economic affairs, and critics argue that this system concentrates power in a religious elite, marginalizing other voices within society.

Ukraine

Since Ukraine's independence in 1991, a powerful class of business elites, known as Ukrainian oligarchs, has played a significant role in the country's politics and economy. These oligarchs gained control of state assets during the rapid privatization that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. By 2021, Ukraine passed a law aimed at curbing oligarchic influence on politics and the economy.

United States

Several commentators and scholars have suggested that the United States demonstrates characteristics of an oligarchy, particularly in relation to the concentration of wealth and political influence among a small elite. (list of top donors)

Economist Simon Johnson argued that the rise of an American financial oligarchy became particularly prominent following the 2008 financial crisis. This financial elite has been described as wielding significant power over both the economy and political decisions.

Former President Jimmy Carter in 2015 characterized the United States as an "oligarchy with unlimited political bribery" following the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision, which removed limits on donations to political candidates.

In 2014, a study by political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University argued that the United States' political system does not primarily reflect the preferences of its average citizens. Their analysis of policy outcomes between 1981 and 2002 suggested that wealthy individuals and business groups held substantial influence over political decisions, often sidelining the majority of Americans. While the United States maintains democratic features such as regular elections, freedom of speech, and widespread suffrage, the study noted that policy decisions are disproportionately influenced by economic elites.

However, the study received criticism from other scholars, who argued that the influence of average citizens should not be discounted and that the conclusions about oligarchic tendencies were overstated. Gilens and Page defended their research, reiterating that while they do not label the United States an outright oligarchy, they found substantial evidence of economic elites dominating certain areas of policy-making.

China

The National Geographic Society's online encyclopedia considers China to be an oligarchy.

See also

• Aristocracy
• Cacique democracy
• Despotism
• Dictatorship
• Inverted totalitarianism
• Iron law of oligarchy
• Kleptocracy
• Meritocracy
• Military dictatorship
• Minoritarianism
• Nepotism
• Netocracy
• Oligopoly
• Oligarchical collectivism
• Parasitism
• Plutocracy
• Political family
• Power behind the throne
• The Power Elite (1956 book by C. Wright Mills)
• Polyarchy
• Stratocracy
• Synarchism
• Theocracy
• Timocracy

References

1. "ὀλίγος", Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
2. "ἄρχω", Liddell/Scott.
3. "ὀλιγαρχία". Liddell/Scott.
4. Winters (2011) pp. 26–28. "Aristotle writes that 'oligarchy is when men of property have the government in their hands... wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a democracy'."
5. ^ Coleman, James; Rosberg, Carl (1966). Political Parties and National Integration in Tropical Africa. Los Angeles: University of California Press. pp. 681–683. ISBN 978-0520002531.
6. ^ Chernenko, Demid (2018). "Capital structure and oligarch ownership" (PDF). Economic Change and Restructuring. 52 (4): 383–411. doi:10.1007/S10644-018-9226-9. S2CID 56232563.
7. Shaw, Bernard und Baziyan, Vitaly. 2-in-1: English-German. Major Barbara & Major in Barbara. New York, 2020, ISBN 979-8692881076
8. Winters, Jeffrey; Page, Benjamin (2009). "Oligarchy in the United States?". Perspectives on Politics. 7 (4) (published December 2009): 731–751. doi:10.1017/S1537592709991770. S2CID 144432999. Retrieved 12 March 2022. the concept of oligarchy can be fruitfully applied not only to places like Singapore, Colombia, Russia, and Indonesia, but also to the contemporary United States.
9. Hutchcroft, Paul D. (April 1991). "Oligarchs and Cronies in the Philippine State the Politics of Patrimonial Plunder". World Politics. 43 (3): 414–450. doi:10.2307/2010401. ISSN 1086-3338. JSTOR 2010401. S2CID 154855272.
10. Mendoza, Ronald U.; Bulaong, Oscar Jr.; Mendoza, Gabrielle Ann S. (1 February 2022). "Cronyism, Oligarchy and Governance in the Philippines: 1970s vs 2020s". SSRN 4032259.
11. Quimpo, Nathan Gilbert (2015), "Can the Philippines' wild oligarchy be tamed?", Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian Democratization, Routledge, pp. 347–362, doi:10.4324/9781315674735-30, ISBN 978-1-315-67473-5, retrieved 15 May 2022
12. ^ "Explainer: The oligarchy in the Philippines is more than just one family or firm". Philstar.com. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
13. Ruth Abbey Gita-Carlos. "Duterte takes pride in dismantling oligarchy". Philippine News Agency. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
14. Esmael, Lisbet (29 June 2022). "Businesses under Duterte administration: Who gained, who got hurt?". CNN Philippines. Archived from the original on 28 September 2023. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
15. Scheidel, Walter (2017). The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century. Princeton University Press. pp. 51 & 222–223. ISBN 978-0691165028.
16. "Russian oligarchs: What are they and how have they changed over time?". BBC. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
17. Kazemzadeh, Masoud (2020). Iran's Foreign Policy: Elite Factionalism, Ideology, the Nuclear Weapons Program, and the United States. New York: Routledge. pp. 1–19. ISBN 978-0-367-49545-9.
18. Amuzager, Jahangir (2014). The Islamic Republic of Iran: Reflections on an Emerging Economy. New York: Routledge. pp. 48–50, 88–89. ISBN 978-1-85743-748-5.
19. "Zelensky's battle against oligarchs: What does the new law mean?". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
20. Kroll, Andy (2 December 2010). "The New American Oligarchy". TomDispatch. Truthout. Archived from the original on 22 January 2012. Retrieved 17 August 2012.
21. Starr, Paul (24 August 2012). "America on the Brink of Oligarchy". The New Republic.
22. Winters, Jeffrey A. (November–December 2011) . "Oligarchy and Democracy". The American Interest. 7 (2). Retrieved 17 August 2012.
23. Herbert, Bob (19 July 1998). "The Donor Class". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
24. Confessore, Nicholas; Cohen, Sarah; Yourish, Karen (10 October 2015). "The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
25. Lichtblau, Eric; Confessore, Nicholas (10 October 2015). "From Fracking to Finance, a Torrent of Campaign Cash – Top Donors List". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
26. McCutcheon, Chuck (26 December 2014). "Why the 'donor class' matters, especially in the GOP presidential scrum". "The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
27. Piketty, Thomas (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Belknap Press. ISBN 067443000X p. 514
28. Johnson, Simon (May 2009). "The Quiet Coup". The Atlantic. Retrieved 17 August 2012.
29. Kreps, Daniel (31 July 2015). "Jimmy Carter: America Is Now an 'Oligarchy'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 14 July 2024.
30. Gilens, Martin; Page, Benjamin I. (2014). "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens". Perspectives on Politics. 12 (3): 564–581. doi:10.1017/S1537592714001595.
31. Prokop, A. (18 April 2014) "The new study about oligarchy that's blowing up the Internet, explained" Vox
32. Bashir, Omar S. (1 October 2015). "Testing Inferences about American Politics: A Review of the "Oligarchy" Result". Research & Politics. 2 (4): 2053168015608896. doi:10.1177/2053168015608896. ISSN 2053-1680.
33. Gilens, Martin; Page, Benjamin I. (7 December 2021). "Critics argued with our analysis of U.S. political inequality. Here are 5 ways they're wrong". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 14 July 2024.
34. "Oligarchy". education.nationalgeographic.org. National Geographic. Retrieved 21 July 2023.

Further reading

• Aslund, Anders (2005), "Comparative Oligarchy: Russia, Ukraine and the United States", CASE Network Studies and Analyses No. 296 (PDF), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, doi:10.2139/ssrn.1441910, S2CID 153769623
• Gordon, Daniel (2010). "Hiring Law Professors: Breaking the Back of an American Plutocratic Oligarchy". Widener Law Journal. 19: 1–29. SSRN 1412783.
• Hollingsworth, Mark; Lansley, Stewart (2010). Londongrad: From Russia with Cash: The Inside Story of the Oligarchs. Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-0007356379.
• Hudson, Michael (2023). The Collapse of Antiquity: Greece and Rome as Civilization's Oligarchic Turning Point. Islet. ISBN 978-3949546129.
• J. M. Moore, ed. (1986). Aristotle and Xenophon on democracy and oligarchy. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520029095.
• Ostwald, M. (2000), Oligarchia: The Development of a Constitutional Form in Ancient Greece (Historia Einzelschirften; 144). Stuttgart: Steiner, ISBN 3515076808.
• Ramseyer, J. Mark; Rosenbluth, Frances McCall (1998). The Politics of Oligarchy: Institutional Choice in Imperial Japan. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521636490.
• Tabachnick, David; Koivukoski, Toivu (2012). On Oligarchy: Ancient Lessons for Global Politics. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1442661165.
• Whibley, Leonard (1896). Greek oligarchies, their character and organisations. G. P. Putnam's Sons.
• Winters, Jeffrey A. (2011). Oligarchy. Northwestern University, Illinois: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107005280.

External links

• Media related to Oligarchies at Wikimedia Commons

• Oligarchy
• Authoritarianism
• Political culture