Oligarchy

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Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning "few", and ἄρχω (arkho), meaning "to rule or to command") is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, religious or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next, but inheritance is not a necessary condition for the application of this term.

Throughout history, oligarchies have often been tyrannical, relying on public obedience or oppression to exist. Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as a synonym for rule by the rich, for which another term commonly used today is plutocracy.

Especially during the fourth century BC, after the restoration of democracy from oligarchical coups, the Athenians used the drawing of lots for selecting government officers in order to counteract what the Athenians saw as a tendency toward oligarchy in government if a professional governing class were allowed to use their skills for their own benefit. They drew lots from large groups of adult volunteers as a selection technique for civil servants performing judicial, executive, and administrative functions (archai, boulē, and hēliastai). They even used lots for posts, such as judges and jurors in the political courts (nomothetai), which had the power to overrule the Assembly.

Examples

Russian Federation

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, privately owned Russia-based multinational corporations, including producers of petroleum, natural gas, and metal have, in the view of some analysts, led to the rise of Russian oligarchs.

United States

Further information: Income inequality in the United States § Impact on democracy and society

Some contemporary authors have characterized current conditions in the United States as oligarchic in nature. Simon Johnson wrote that "the reemergence of an American financial oligarchy is quite recent," a structure which he delineated as being the "most advanced" in the world. Jeffrey A. Winters wrote that "oligarchy and democracy operate within a single system, and American polit is a daily display of their interplay." Bernie Sanders, opined in a 2010 The Nation article that an "upper-crust of extremely wealthy families are hell-bent on destroying the democratic vision of a strong middle-class … In its place they are determined to create an oligarchy in which a small number of families control the economic and political life of our country." The top 1% in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928. In 2011, according to PolitiFact and others, the top 400 wealthiest Americans "have more wealth than half of all Americans combined."

French economist Thomas Piketty states in his 2013 book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, that "the risk of a drift towards oligarchy is real and gives little reason for optimism about where the United States is headed."

A study conducted by political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton University, and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, was released in April 2014, which stated that their "analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts." It also suggested that "Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise." Gilens and Page do not characterize the US as an "oligarchy" per se; however, they do apply the concept of "civil oligarchy" as used by Jeffrey Winters with respect to the US. Winters has posited a comparative theory of "oligarchy" in which the wealthiest citizens – even in a "civil oligarchy" like the United States – dominate policy concerning crucial issues of wealth- and income-protection.

Gilens says that average citizens only get what they want if economic elites or interest groups also want it; that is, economic elites and interest groups are influential.

In a 2015 interview, former President Jimmy Carter stated that the United States is now "an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery," due to the Citizens United ruling, which effectively removed limits on donations to political candidates.

In fiction

A well-known fictional oligarchy is represented by the Inner Party in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The socialists in the Jack London novel The Iron Heel fight a rebellion against the oligarchy ruling in the United States. In the Ender's Quartet, by Orson Scott Card - specifically Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of The Mind - there is an oligarchy of the Starways Congress which rules by controlling communication by the Ansible. The nation Panem, controlled by its capitol, in The Hunger Games trilogy is also a form of oligarchy, as is the nation of Tear (ruled by a group of high lords, until the appointment of High Lord Darlin as King of Tear) in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time.

See also

• Aristocracy
• Dictatorship
• Inverted totalitarianism
• Iron law of oligarchy
• Kleptocracy
• Meritocracy
• Military junta
• Nepotism
• Netocracy
• Oligopoly
• Political family
• Power behind the throne
• Plutocracy
• Stratocracy
• Synarchism
• Theocracy
• Timocracy

Further reading

• Aslund, Anders (2005), "Comparative Oligarchy: Russia, Ukraine and the United States" (PDF), CASE Network Studies and Analyses No. 296 (PDF), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, doi:10.2139/ssrn.1441910 
• Gordon, Daniel (2010). "Hiring Law Professors: Breaking the Back of an American Plutocratic Oligarchy". Widener Law Journal (Harrisburg, PA: Widener University School of Law) 19: 1–29. 
• Hollingsworth, Mark; Lansley, Stewart (12 August 2010). Londongrad: From Russia with Cash: The Inside Story of the Oligarchs. Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-0007356379. 
• J. M. Moore, ed. (1986). Aristotle and Xenophon on democracy and oligarchy. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-02909-7. 
• Ostwald, M. Oligarchia: The Development of a Constitutional Form in Ancient Greece (Historia Einzelschirften; 144). Stuttgart: Steiner, 2000 (ISBN 3-515-07680-8).
• Ramseyer, J. Mark; Rosenbluth, Frances McCall (28 March 1998). The Politics of Oligarchy: Institutional Choice in Imperial Japan. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521636490. 
• Tabachnick, David; Koivukoski, Toivu (20 January 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. Retrieved 18 August 2012. 
• Winters, Jeffrey A. (2011). Oligarchy. Northwestern University, Illinois: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107005280.