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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