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. 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. 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. But its money buys plenty of access." įrench 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." Ī 2014 study by political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University stated 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 19 and compared them to the expressed preferences of the American public as opposed to wealthy Americans and large special interest groups. In 1998, Bob Herbert of The New York Times referred to modern American plutocrats as "The Donor Class" (list of top donors) and defined the class, for the first time, as "a tiny group-just one-quarter of 1 percent of the population-and it is not representative of the rest of the nation. In 2011, according to PolitiFact and others, the top 400 wealthiest Americans "have more wealth than half of all Americans combined." population by wealth in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928. Winters wrote that "oligarchy and democracy operate within a single system, and American politics is a daily display of their interplay." The top 1% of the U.S. Simon Johnson wrote in 2009 that "the reemergence of an American financial oligarchy is quite recent", a structure which he delineated as being the "most advanced" in the world. Some contemporary authors have characterized conditions in the United States in the 21st century as oligarchic in nature. "The Bosses of the Senate", corporate interests as giant money bags looming over senators. Page have described Colombia, Indonesia, Russia, Singapore, and the United States as oligarchies. I want a democratic power strong enough to force the intellectual oligarchy to use its genius for the general good or else perish." Cases perceived as oligarchies
I want to arm them against the lawyer, the doctor, the priest, the literary man, the professor, the artist, and the politician, who, once in authority, is the most dangerous, disastrous, and tyrannical of all the fools, rascals, and impostors.
George Bernard Shaw defined in his play Major Barbara, premiered in 1905 and first published in 1907, a new type of Oligarchy namely the intellectual oligarchy that acts against the interests of the common people: "I now want to give the common man weapons against the intellectual man. Owners control multiple businesses, which intensively coordinate their activities.
It possesses sufficient political power to promote its own interests.Owners are the largest private owners in the country.Putative oligarchies Ī business group might be defined as an oligarchy if it satisfies all of the following conditions: 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. The exclusive consolidation of power by a dominant religious or ethnic minority has also been described as a form of oligarchy.
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