Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The United Oligarchy of America


Oligarchy (ol·i·gar·chy) - Small governing group: a small group of people who together govern a nation or control an organization, often for their own purposes. 

German sociologist Robert Michels*believed that any political system eventually evolves into an oligarchy. He called this the iron law of oligarchy. According to this school of thought, many modern democracies should be considered as oligarchies. In these systems, actual differences between viable political rivals are small, the oligarchic elite impose strict limits on what constitutes an acceptable and respectable political position, and politicians' careers depend heavily on unelected economic and media elites. Thus the popular phrase: there is only one political party, the incumbent party. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where America is today. There’s not a dime’s bit of difference between the two parties in Washington. We either remove them or we say goodbye to America. 

I think we’re screwed since America said “yes” to the status quo in the last election. I challenge anyone to show me where I’m wrong. 

Gone fishin’…when I’m not desperately gathering as many tangible assets as I can afford to buy.
 

*Robert Michels (9 January 1876, Cologne, Germany – 3 May 1936, Rome, Italy) was a German sociologist who wrote on the political behavior of intellectual elites and contributed to elite theory. He is best known for his book Political Parties, published in 1911, which contains a description of the "iron law of oligarchy." He was a student of Max Weber, a friend and disciple of Werner Sombart and Achille Loria. Politically, he moved from the Social Democratic Party of Germany to the Italian Socialist Party, adhering to the Italian revolutionary syndicalist wing and later to Italian Fascism, which he saw as a more democratic form of socialism. His ideas provided the basis of moderation theory which delineates the processes through which radical political groups are incorporated into the existing political system.

 

 

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