Oligarchy

"Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy. If laws are passed to control the dominion of the leaders, it is the laws which gradually weaken, and not the leaders."

File:SocialistFash.png Robert Michels

Oligarchy is a political system where a small group of individuals are the collective rulers, usually indirectly through lobbying a head of state, though this group can rule directly in some cases. This group may or may not be distinguished from the masses by one or several traits such as File:Gero.png age and/or File:Plutocrat.png wealth.

History

First definitions

Oligarchy's history can be remoted to the start of the civilizations as we know it, and it was first mentioned by Aristotle and Plato. Aristotle defined it as a degenerative form of File:Arist.png Aristocracy, while Plato argued oligarchy will arise when the succession of an aristocratic system is perpetuated by blood or mythical transfer, without the ethical and managerial qualities of the best arising on their own merit, contrary to File:Merit.png Meritocracy. Basically a step to degenerate into a Tyranny.

The first oligarchies that are documented appeared in File:Cball-Greece.png Ancient Greece, such examples could be shown as the Thirty Tyrants of Athens or the Spartan system of "rotating" ephors, which limited the power of the kings. Which was heavily criticised by Plato and Aristotle. However, the widespread opinion in his time about the need for a property qualification in the election of the most worthy — as it happened in File:Cball-Carthage.png Carthage — Aristotle also rejected it because of the actual " purchase of power». Aristotle defined the Oligarchy in four types:

1. When a moderate property is in the hands of the majority, by virtue of which the owners have the opportunity to take part in the government, and since the number of such people is large, the supreme power is inevitably in the hands of the law, not of the people. For to the extent that they are far from the monarchy if their property is not so large that they can enjoy their leisure without care, and not so insignificant that they need the support of the state-they will inevitably demand that the law should rule over them, and not themselves.
2. The number of people who own property is less than the number of people in the first type of oligarchy, but the size of the property itself is greater. Having a large economic resource, these owners also make more political demands. Therefore, they themselves choose from among the other citizens who are allowed to govern the state. But because they are not yet strong enough to govern without the application of the law, they establish a law suitable for them. If the situation becomes tenser in the sense that the number of owners decreases, and the amount of property in the hands of each individual such owner increases.
3. All offices are concentrated in the hands of the proprietors, and the law commands that, after their death, their sons succeed them in office.
4. When their property grows to an enormous size and they acquire a mass of supporters, it turns out a dynastic oligarchy, close to the monarchy, and then the rulers become people-oligarchs and not the law — this is the fourth type of oligarchy, corresponding to the extreme type of degenerate aristocracy.

Oligarchy is inherently related to File:Plutocrat.png Plutocracy, and the latter can be considered a subtype of it.

Modern definition

Oligarchy was very unknown until the French Revolution, when they redefined the term in of "the rule of few" to "the merge of the political and economic power". Intellectuals talked explained about the harmfulness of this phenomenon by the fact that such a merger leads to corruption, unfair competition and monopolism, which in turn undermines the country's economy and makes it weak and uncompetitive at the international level. Under an oligarchy, prices rise and the quality of products falls, as economic competitors within the country are suppressed by the oligarchs by political means in the interests of their own factories. Since then, the term oligarchy has been regularly used in an expanded sense, with it being usued synonymously with File:Corp.png Corporatocracy, especially in the context of Post-Soviet states. Robert Michels formulated in 1911 the "Iron law of Oligarchy" which formulated that democracy is impossible and all will go to an Oligarchy.

Soviet political-economic writers recoined the modern definition of the rule of the narrow group of people as rich or elderly.

Modern oligarchies

Princeton University made a study of the analysis of the government programmes and made the decision that the the USA had converted from a Democracy to an Oligarchy, where elections became just a ceremonial procedure. 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. In 2011, according to PolitiFact and others, the top 400 wealthiest Americans "have more wealth than half of all Americans combined." thus, they had a big power in American Politics in the Senate.

File:Cball-Russia.png Russia

Russia after 1991 remains a remarkable example of an oligarchy, like the Semibankirschina, or the rule of the seven bank leaders' name that contrasted it with the Seven Boyars power. The power of those is so big that they control the newspapers and even some people as File:MMMism.png Sergei Mavrodi, retained more power than the state. In the 2000s the Oligarchs still controlled most of the state enterprises and economy, even though in 2020, Dmitri Peskov claimed that "there are no oligarchs in Russia". File:Putin.png Putin largely maintains the oligarchies and has a mutually good relationship with them.

File:Cball-Ukraine.png Ukraine

Ukraine's situation is similar to that of Russia, as business oligarchs have a big political influence. The oligarchs' influence on the Ukrainian Government is extreme but is waning. The notable people include, File:Zamaybutneyloig.png Ihor Kolomoyskyi, File:Plutocrat.png Dmytro Firtash, etc. Overall, there are about 35 oligarch groups. In 2011 and even to this day some analysts and Ukrainian politicians believe that some Ukrainian business tycoons have extremely close relations with Russia. In 2008, the combined wealth of Ukraine's 50 richest oligarchs was equal to 85% of the country's GDP, by end of 2013, the number was 45%. In 2021, File:Zelensky.png Volodymyr Zelensky declared himself the expert at who is and isn't an oligarch and through his decree formally defined an oligarch using his own criteria as:

• Involvement in political life
• File:Mediastocracy flair.png Influence on mass media
• Is a de-facto owner of a monopoly, and maintains or strengthens it for over 1 year.
• Has at least 2700 million Hryvnas in assets.

People who fit those criteria are prohibited from buying privatized assets and giving campaign donations. File:PPoroshenko.png Petro Poroshenko left the oligarch list by selling his media. File:Oppoplatforlife.png Viktor Medvedchuk's channels were shut down for promoting Russophilia, before being arrested for treason after the 2022 invasion, before being sent to Russia after a POW exchange, still being left without being wealth. File:Cball-CrimeanTatar.png Rinat Akhmetov left the list by "voluntarily" handing over his media to the state. The Oligarchs are becoming gradually weaker, but maintain significant economic power.

File:Cball-Malaysia.png Malaysia

Malaysia during Mahathir's Seventh Cabinet (2018-2020) consisted of a five-member advisory team called "Council of Eminent Persons" (CEP) or "Council of Elders" (Malay: Majlis Penasihat Kerajaan, literally Government Advisory Council), which is similar to an oligarch system that advises the Government of Malaysia. The Council consists of File:Plutocrat.png Daim Zainuddin, File:Bankocracy.png Zeti Akthar Aziz, File:Plutocrat.png Robert Kwok Hok Nien, File:Neoliberal-icon.png Jomo Kwame Sundaram and File:Plutocrat.png Hassan Marican.

Variants

File:Triarchy.png Triarchy File:TriarchyCrownless.png

WIP

File:Tetra.png Tetrarchy

WIP

File:Penta.png Pentarchy

WIP

File:Briukh.png Briukovetskyism

WIP

File:Coronel.png Coronelismo

A period in the history of Brazil that was characterized by the control of politics by large coffee and milk oligarchs. Also known as the "Coffee with Milk" policy

File:CollectiveLeadership.png Collective Leadership

A term denoting the joint management of the state/decision-making in communist parties with the help of a limited circle of influential figures

File:Schumpeter.png Schumpeterism

Joseph Alois Schumpeter was an Austrian political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at Harvard University, where he remained until the end of his career, and in 1939 obtained American citizenship.

Schumpeter was one of the most influential economists of the early 20th century, and popularized creative destruction, a term coined by Werner Sombart. His magnum opus is considered to be Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.

Schumpeter's most popular book in English is probably Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. While he agrees with Karl Marx that capitalism will collapse and be replaced by socialism, Schumpeter predicts a different way this will come about. While Marx predicted that capitalism would be overthrown by a violent proletarian revolution, which occurred in the least capitalist countries, Schumpeter believed that capitalism would gradually weaken itself and eventually collapse. Specifically, the success of capitalism would lead to File:SocialistCorporatism.pngcorporatism and to values hostile to capitalism, especially among intellectuals.

"Intellectuals" are a social class in a position to critique societal matters for which they are not directly responsible and to stand up for the interests of other classes. Intellectuals tend to have a negative outlook on capitalism, even while relying on it for prestige because their professions rely on antagonism toward it. The growing number of people with higher education is a great advantage of capitalism, according to Schumpeter. Yet, unemployment and a lack of fulfilling work will lead to intellectual critique, discontent, and protests.

Parliaments will increasingly elect social democratic parties, and democratic majorities will vote for restrictions on entrepreneurship. Increasing workers' self-management, industrial democracy and regulatory institutions would evolve non-politically into "liberal capitalism". Thus, the intellectual and social climate needed for thriving entrepreneurship will be replaced by some form of "laborism". This will exacerbate "creative destruction" (a borrowed phrase to denote an endogenous replacement of old ways of doing things by new ways), which will ultimately undermine and destroy the capitalist structure.

Beliefs

Most people who believe in Oligarchical forms of government generally belief that an Oligarchy is inescapable and natural.

This is belief is backed by commonly seen statistical phenomena as the Pareto principle and the less scientific Sturgeon's Law. With Pareto principle being the principle stating that within most given scenarios 20% of the population will be responsible for 80% of the productivity, and Sturgeon's law being the general rule that around 90% of any given selection will be of low quality, that is, if the judge’s bar for high quality is high enough (which can be applied to people and their ability or desire to rule others).

The Pareto principle can be seen in the polcompball community, with 20% of users receiving 90% of upvotes(though this data may be out of date now). The wiki is also an example of a formal oligarchy, being moderated by a council, not a single dictator.

Another example of statistical likelihood of Oligarchical systems to emerge is Robert Michel's Iron Law of Oligarchy, which is a rule stating that fundamentally all large organisations are oligarchical in nature and any attempt at getting rid of such a structure fundamentally (such as done in Socialist Parties and Trade Unions) only ends up re-enforcing it.

Other justifications for oligarchy include believing that no one man should have all the power or wanting representation of several groups at once.

How to Draw

File:Oligarchy flag.svg

Flag of Oligarchy

1. Draw a ball
2. Colour it yellow
3. Draw 6 red circles at the vertices of an imaginary hexagon shape
4. Add one eye
5. For the second eye, draw an orange monocle with a grey chain
6. You are finished.

Color Name		HEX	RGB
	Yellow	#FFF200	rgb(255, 242, 0)
	Red	#ED1C24	rgb(237, 28, 36)
	Orange	#FF7F27	rgb(255, 127, 39)
	Chain Grey	#7F7F7F	rgb(127, 127, 127)

Relationships

Fellow oligarchs

• File:Gero.png Gerontocracy - Believe it or not, this old man is actually my son.
• File:Klep.png Kleptocracy - My true successor.
• File:Plutocrat.png Plutocracy - I already told you, you're my true successor.
• File:Tetra.png Tetrarchy - You are considered small but still one.
• File:Sec.png Authoritarianism - Grandpa!
• File:Illum.png Illuminatism - You're me plus stealth.
• File:Ittihad.png İttihadism - Three pashas were epic.
• File:Banana Republicanism.png Banana Republicanism - My banana-obsessed son who got some success in Central America.
• File:Blanqui.png Blanquism, File:ThreeRepresents.png Three Represents, File:ArturoLabriola.png Arturo Labriola Thought, File:Esosoc.png Esoteric Socialism & File:Brezhnev.png Brezhnev Doctrine - The kinds of socialism that I like.
• File:Reactlib.png Reactionary Liberalism - The Thermidorian convention and the Pareto principle are based.
• File:Timocracy.png Timocracy - Hmm, I guess landlords can make good leaders.
• File:Technocracy.png Technocracy - Great idea! We can pretend to be supposedly meritocratic and let those who are already rich, powerful, and who have had a privileged upbringing their entire lives keep holding onto power. That way we can just blame the proles for being too stupid to understand why we're in power and that we are simply the best qualified to rule. If they still resist, we can just laugh at them for their lower test scores since they are already too disadvantaged, and poor to both pass and afford bribing tutoring to get our higher level of education and status.
• File:Pilsudski.png Sanationism - Respect to the Marshal!
• File:Merc.png Mercantilism and File:Corp.png Corporatocracy - Merchant republics are based.
• File:Optim.png Optimateism - Plebs should just shut up and obey the Senate.

Tools

• File:Diarchy.png Diarchy - You are a borderline autocracy. But we both agree no one man should have all the power.
• File:Demarchy.png Demarchy - With that, anyone can join in our cabal, but on the other hand, we could lose some members.
• File:IllibDem.png Illiberal Democracy - He likes me but hates it when I'm with File:Klep.png him.
• File:Pop.png Populism - Thanks for giving File:Fake populist.png me power, moron.
• File:Helv.png Helvetic Model - The Federal Council is great, but you aren't fully me, since you have referendums where every pleb can vote.
• File:Dem.png Democracy - Fool, claims to hate me yet nowadays he brings me to power and doesn't move a finger to clean me up.
  • File:Dem.png File:LBubble.pngI don’t have fingers. Oh, well, collective leadership is still better than absolutism.File:RBubble.png

Outsiders

• File:Arist.png Aristocracy - You're pompous and foolish.
• File:Auto.png Autocracy - You're an even more foolish and selfish prick who wants to rule alone instead of sharing power with other members of our cabal.
• File:Ochlo.png Ochlocracy - This ideology doesn't exist.
• Anarchism - Neither does this one.
• Anti-Authoritarianism - Or this one.
• File:Illeg.png Illegalism - Don't resist, go back to work or you will be shot.
  • File:Illeg.png File:LBubble.pngI already murdered all your police defenders, so it's time to pay for your life AND your wealth, el chico!File:RBubble.png

• File:Caesar.png Caesarism - How dare you make reforms that benefit only the lowly ple-
  • File:Caesar.png File:LBubble.pngHA HA, REFORMATIONES VADE BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRFile:RBubble.png

Further Information

Literature

• Political Parties: A Sociological Study of Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy by Robert Michels
• The Ruling Class by Gaetano Mosca
• The Mind and Society: A Treatise on General Sociology by Vilfredo Pareto
• Mafia Democracy: How Our Republic Became a Mob Racket by Michael Franzese

Wikipedia

• Oligarchy
• Elite
• Elitism
• The Establishment
• Business Oligarch
• Collective leadership
• Cabal
• Directorial system
• The Boyars

Videos

• The Intractable Problem of Democracy and Elite Theory: Gaetono Mosca and Vilfredo Pareto by File:AcademicAgent.png The Academic Agent
• Who is Going to Rule Russia After Putin? by Kings and Generals
• Is the US turning into an oligarchy? by Money & Macro
• America's History Is Repeating Itself by hoser

Gallery

Portraits

• File:Olig.png
• Plain design
  Plain design
• File:Oligarchy-big2.png

Alternative designs

• Coronelismo
  Coronelismo

Comics and Artwork

• Xmas compass by Spade
  Xmas compass by Spade
• Credit: K-Tech, Source
  Credit: K-Tech, Source
• Credit: K-Tech, Source
  Credit: K-Tech, Source
• Oligarchy family tree
  Oligarchy family tree
• Credit: u/Eu_Sou_BR, Source
  Credit: u/Eu_Sou_BR, Source
• Credit: u/yebito2808, Source
  Credit: u/yebito2808, Source
• Credit: u/Eu_Sou_BR, Source
  Credit: u/Eu_Sou_BR, Source