Oligarchy

Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning 'few', and ἄρχω (arkho), meaning 'to rule or to command')[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may be distinguished by nobility, wealth, family ties, education or corporate, religious or political, military control. Such states are often controlled by 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,[4] for which another term commonly used today is plutocracy.

Although an oligarchy is usually seen as tyrannical, most modern states rely on some form of oligarchy, usually in the form of representative officials deciding national policy. The concern of tyranny usually occurs when the rule of law is violated or when there's limited separation of powers.

Especially during the fourth century BCE, after the restoration of democracy from oligarchical coups, the Athenians used the drawing of lots for selecting government officers 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.[5] They drew lots from large groups of adult volunteers to pick civil servants performing judicial, executive, and administrative functions (archai, boulē, and hēliastai).[6] They even used lots for posts, such as judges and jurors in the political courts (nomothetai), which had the power to overrule the Assembly.[7]

Minority rule

The exclusive consolidation of power by a dominant religious or ethnic minority has also been described as a form of oligarchy.[8] Examples of this system include South Africa under apartheid, Liberia under Americo-Liberians, the Sultanate of Zanzibar, and Rhodesia, where the installation of oligarchic rule by the descendants of foreign settlers was primarily regarded as a legacy of various forms of colonialism.[8]

The modern United States of America has also been described as an oligarchy[9], with its Republican Party representing a minority of the population but securing control of both houses of Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court. Migration to cities will likely see the Republican Party's hold over the Senate strengthen in subsequent elections[10], despite an expected demographic shift to a majority-minority population by 2045[11]. And lifetime appointments of Supreme Court justices make that body's conservative majority a likelihood for at least eight years.[12]

Putative oligarchies

A business group might be defined as an oligarch if it satisfies the following conditions:

(1) owners are the largest private owners in the country (2) it possesses sufficient political power to promote its own interests (3) owners control multiple businesses, which intensively coordinate their activities.[13]

Russian Federation

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and privatisation of the economy in December 1991, privately owned Russia-based multinational corporations, including producers of petroleum, natural gas, and metal have, in the view of many analysts, led to the rise of Russian oligarchs.[14]

Ukraine

The Ukrainian oligarchs are a group of business oligarchs that quickly appeared on the economic and political scene of Ukraine after its independence in 1991. Overall there are 35 oligarchic groups [13]

Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwean oligarchs are a group of liberation war veterans; who form the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front, a colonial liberation party. The philosophy of the Zimbabwean government is that Zimbabwe can only be governed by a leader who took part in the pre-independence war. ZANU-PF has a theme motto in Shona "Zimbabwe yakauya neropa" meaning Zimbabwe was born from the blood of the sons and daughters who died fighting for its independence. The born free generation (born since independence in 1980) has no birthright to rule Zimbabwe.

United States

Some contemporary authors have characterized current conditions in the United States as oligarchic in nature.[15][16] 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.[17] Jeffrey A. Winters wrote that "oligarchy and democracy operate within a single system, and American politics is a daily display of their interplay."[18] The top 1% of the U.S. population by wealth in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928.[19] In 2011, according to PolitiFact and others, the top 400 wealthiest Americans "have more wealth than half of all Americans combined."[20][21][22][23]

In 1998 Bob Herbert of The New York Times referred to modern American plutocrats as "The Donor Class"[24][25] (list of top donors)[26] and defined the class, for the first time,[27] as "a tiny group—just one-quarter of 1 percent of the population—and it is not representative of the rest of the nation. But its money buys plenty of access."[24]

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."[28]

A study conducted by political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University was released in April 2014,[29] which stated that their "analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts." The study analyzed nearly 1,800 policies enacted by the US government between 1981 and 2002 and compared them to the expressed preferences of the American public as opposed to wealthy Americans and large special interest groups.[30] It found that wealthy individuals and organizations representing business interests have substantial political influence, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little to none. The study did concede 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.[31]

Gilens says that average citizens only get what they want if wealthy Americans and business-oriented interest groups also want it; and that when a policy favored by the majority of the American public is implemented, it is usually because the economic elites did not oppose it.[32] Other studies have questioned the Page and Gilens study.[33][34][35]

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.[36]

See also

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) p. 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. ↑ Hansen, Mogens Herman (1991). The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0631180173. OCLC 22809482
  6. ↑ Bernard Manin. Principles of Representative Government. pp. 11–24 (1997).
  7. ↑ Manin (1997), pp. 19–23.
  8. 1 2 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.
  9. ↑ Gilens, M., & Page, B. (2014). Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens. Perspectives on Politics, 12(3), 564-581. doi:10.1017/S1537592714001595
  10. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/07/12/in-about-20-years-half-the-population-will-live-in-eight-states/?utm_term=.e75b548d764c
  11. ↑ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/
  12. ↑ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-long-will-the-supreme-courts-conservative-bloc-survive/
  13. 1 2 Chernenko, Demid (2018). "Capital structure and oligarch ownership". Economic Change and Restructuring: 1–29. doi:10.1007/S10644-018-9226-9.
  14. ↑ 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.
  15. ↑ Kroll, Andy (2 December 2010). "The New American Oligarchy". TomDispatch. Truthout. Archived from the original on 22 January 2012. Retrieved 17 August 2012.
  16. ↑ "America on the Brink of Oligarchy". tnr.com.
  17. ↑ Johnson, Simon (May 2009). "The Quiet Coup". The Atlantic. Retrieved 17 August 2012.
  18. ↑ Winters, Jeffrey A. (November–December 2011) [28 September 2011]. "Oligarchy and Democracy". The American Interest. 7 (2). Retrieved 17 August 2012.
  19. ↑ "Tax Data Show Richest 1 Percent Took a Hit in 2008, But Income Remained Highly Concentrated at the Top. Recent Gains of Bottom 90 Percent Wiped Out". Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 25 May 2011. Retrieved 30 May 2014.
  20. ↑ Kertscher, Tom; Borowski, Greg (10 March 2011). "The Truth-O-Meter Says: True – Michael Moore says 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined". PolitiFact. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  21. ↑ Moore, Michael (6 March 2011). "America Is Not Broke". Huffington Post. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  22. ↑ Moore, Michael (7 March 2011). "The Forbes 400 vs. Everybody Else". michaelmoore.com. Archived from the original on 9 March 2011. Retrieved 2014-08-28.
  23. ↑ Pepitone, Julianne (22 September 2010). "Forbes 400: The super-rich get richer". CNN. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
  24. 1 2 Herbert, Bob (19 July 1998). "The Donor Class". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
  25. ↑ Confessore, Nicholas; Cohen, Sarah; Yourish, Karen (10 October 2015). "The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
  26. ↑ 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.
  27. ↑ McCutcheon, Chuck (26 December 2014). "Why the 'donor class' matters, especially in the GOP presidential scrum". "The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
  28. ↑ Piketty, Thomas (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Belknap Press. ISBN 067443000X p. 514
  29. ↑ Martin Gilens & Benjamin I. Page (2014). "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" (PDF). Perspectives on Politics. 12 (3): 564–581. doi:10.1017/S1537592714001595.
  30. ↑ "Major Study Finds The US Is An Oligarchy". businessinsider.com.
  31. ↑ Gilens & Page (2014) p. 6
  32. ↑ Prokop, A. (18 April 2014) "The new study about oligarchy that's blowing up the Internet, explained" Vox
  33. ↑ 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.
  34. ↑ Enns, Peter K. (1 December 2015). "Relative Policy Support and Coincidental Representation". Perspectives on Politics. 13 (04): 1053–1064. doi:10.1017/S1537592715002315. ISSN 1541-0986.
  35. ↑ Enns, Peter K. (1 December 2015). "Reconsidering the Middle: A Reply to Martin Gilens". Perspectives on Politics. 13 (04): 1072–1074. doi:10.1017/S1537592715002339. ISSN 1541-0986.
  36. ↑ "Jimmy Carter: America Is Now an 'Oligarchy'". rollingstone.com.

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
  • Gordon, Daniel (2010). "Hiring Law Professors: Breaking the Back of an American Plutocratic Oligarchy". Widener Law Journal. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Widener University School of Law. 19: 1–29. SSRN 1412783.
  • 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.
  • Winters, Jeffrey A. (2011). Oligarchy. Northwestern University, Illinois: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107005280.
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