Definition, History, Recent Argument:
Winters, “Oligarchy” (2015)
The strongest argument against muddling
the categories is that a materialist theory of oli-
garchy helps account for why greater partici-
pation sometimes fails to defeat minority
power – which suggests that it makes sense to
define oligarchs and elites separately in order
to capture this difference. The evidence is over-
whelming that greater participation by major-
ities is a strong antidote to elite forms of power
and exclusion, but not to oligarchic power and
influence. Increased civic engagement, active
people’s councils, and grassroots mobilizations
all pose major challenges to elite dominance
and autonomy. However, there is no parallel
effect on oligarchs. Capitalist democracies
combine dispersed formal political power
based on universal suffrage and freedom of
expression with concentrated material power
based on wealth.
Because the power of oligarchs is materi-
ally based, it is the deconcentration of wealth
and not wider participation that challenges
their power. Oligarchs exist equally in sys-
tems that have high and low mass partici-
pation – although the nature of oligarchy,
particularly the politics of wealth defense,
may vary widely in each. This helps account
for the presence of oligarchs across widely
different political systems, for their remark-
able capacity to adapt and endure despite
radical political transitions (notably between
dictatorships and democracies), and for how
wealth inequality can increase and the power
of oligarchs can grow more intense even as a
nation becomes more democratic and partic-
ipatory, as occurred in the United States dur-
ing the centuries after 1776.
Gilens and Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” (2014)
Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics—which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian
Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination, and two types of interest-group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased
Pluralism—offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens;
economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented.
A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been
possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort
to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial
independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no
independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of
Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
Michael Parenti, Democracy for the Few, chapter 2: “A Constitution for the Few” (2010)
Major questions relating to the new government’s ability to protect the
interests of property were agreed upon with surprisingly little debate. On these
issues, there were no poor farmers, artisans, indentured servants, or slaves at-
tending the convention to proffer an opposing viewpoint. Ordinary working
people could not take off four months to go to Philadelphia and write a con-
stitution. The debate between haves and have-nots never took place.
Not surprisingly, Article I, Section 8, that crucial portion of the Constitu-
tion that enables the federal government to serve the interests of investment
property, was adopted within a few days with little debate. Congress was
given the power to regulate commerce among the states and with foreign na-
tions and Indian tribes, lay and collect taxes and excises, impose duties and
tariffs on imports but not on commercial exports, “Pay the Debts and provide
for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States,” establish a
national currency and regulate its value, borrow money, fix the standard of
weights and measures necessary for commerce, protect the value of securities
and currency against counterfeiting, and establish uniform bankruptcy laws
throughout the country—all measures of primary concern to investors, mer-
chants, and creditors.
Some of the delegates were land speculators who invested in western hold-
ings. Accordingly, Congress was given the power to regulate and protect all
western territorial property. Most of the delegates speculated in government
securities, inflated paper scrip that the earlier Confederation had issued to
pay soldiers and small suppliers. Wealthy speculators bought from impover-
ished holders huge amounts of these nearly worthless securities for a trifling.
Under Article VI, all debts incurred by the Confederation were valid against
the new government, a provision that allowed the speculators to reap enor-
mous profits by cashing in the inflated scrip at face value.14
Optional: Urbinati, “Oligarchy” (2010)
Optional: Winters, “Oligarchy in the United States” (2009)
“The history of all hitherto existing societies,” Marx once wrote, “is the history of class struggle.” What if the central political form of our time is not democracy — the rule of the majority of people — but oligarchy — the rule of the few? This course examines the idea and structure of oligarchic power in theory, in history, and in contemporary practice. We’ll read political theorists and social scientists who have analyzed how wealth, status, and institutional control concentrate in the hands of a small elite even within ostensibly democratic societies. Core readings include Michael Parenti’s Democracy for the Few, G. William Domhoff’s Who Rules America?, and a selection of historical documents. We will trace how “national” concerns are invoked to justify decisions that primarily benefit dominant classes and will ask whether oligarchy today operates more through persuasion than coercion. We will also compare classical notions of aristocracy and plutocracy to modern networks of corporate, bureaucratic, and intelligence power.
