Iron law of oligarchy
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The iron law of oligarchy is a
political theory Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...
first developed by the German-born Italian sociologist
Robert Michels Robert Michels (; 9 January 1876 – 3 May 1936) was a German-born Italian sociologist who contributed to elite theory by describing the political behavior of intellectual elites. He belonged to the Italian school of elitism. He is best know ...
in his 1911 book ''
Political Parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...
''.James L. Hyland. ''Democratic theory: the philosophical foundations''. Manchester, England, UK; New York, New York, USA:
Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
Press ND, 1995. p. 247.
It asserts that rule by an elite, or
oligarchy Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
, is inevitable as an "iron law" within any democratic organization as part of the "tactical and technical necessities" of the organization. Michels's theory states that all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies. Michels observed that since no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a
direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate decides on policy initiatives without legislator, elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently establishe ...
,
power Power most often refers to: * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events ** Abusive power Power may a ...
within an organization will always get delegated to individuals within that group, elected or otherwise. Using
anecdote An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Occasionally humorous ...
s from
political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...
and
trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
s struggling to operate democratically to build his argument in 1911, Michels addressed the application of this law to
representative democracy Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represen ...
, and stated: "Who says organization, says oligarchy." He went on to state that "Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy." According to Michels, all organizations eventually come to be run by a "leadership class", who often function as paid administrators,
executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dir ...
s,
spokesperson A spokesperson, spokesman, or spokeswoman, is someone engaged or elected to speak on behalf of others. Duties and function In the present media-sensitive world, many organizations are increasingly likely to employ professionals who have receiv ...
s or
political strategist Political consulting is a form of consulting that consists primarily of advising and assisting political campaigns. Although the most important role of political consultants is arguably the development and production of mass media (largely tele ...
s for the organization. Far from being "servants of the masses", Michels argues this "leadership class", rather than the organization's membership, will inevitably grow to dominate the organization's
power structure In political sociology, but also operative within the rest of the animal, animal kingdom, a power structure is a hierarchy of competence or aggression (might) predicated on power (social and political), influence between an individual and other ...
s. By controlling who has access to information, those in power can centralize their power successfully, often with little accountability, due to the
apathy Apathy is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, or concern about something. It is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, or passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of intere ...
, indifference and non-participation most rank-and-file members have in relation to their organization's decision-making processes. Michels argues that democratic attempts to hold leadership positions
accountable Accountability, in terms of ethics and governance, is equated with answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving. As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the ...
are prone to fail, since with power comes the ability to reward
loyalty Loyalty, in general use, is a devotion and faithfulness to a nation, cause, philosophy, country, group, or person. Philosophers disagree on what can be an object of loyalty, as some argue that loyalty is strictly interpersonal and only another h ...
, the ability to control information about the organization, and the ability to control what procedures the organization follows when making decisions. All of these mechanisms can be used to strongly influence the outcome of any decisions made 'democratically' by members. Michels stated that the official goal of representative democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that representative democracy is a
façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...
legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, which he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable. Later Michels migrated to Italy and joined
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
Fascist Party, as he believed this was the next legitimate step of modern societies. The thesis became popular once more in post-war America with the publication of '' Union Democracy: The Internal Politics of the International Typographical Union'' (1956) and during the
red scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...
brought about by
McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...
.


History

In 1911 Robert Michels argued that
paradox A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...
ically the socialist parties of Europe, despite their democratic ideology and provisions for mass participation, seemed to be dominated by their leaders just like traditional
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
parties. Michels' conclusion was that the problem lay in the very nature of organizations. The more
liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...
and democratic modern era allowed the formation of organizations with innovative and revolutionary goals, but as such organizations become more complex, they became less and less democratic and revolutionary. Michels formulated the "iron law of oligarchy": "Who says organization, says oligarchy." He later became an important ideologue of
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
's
fascist Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
regime in
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, teaching economics at the
University of Perugia University of Perugia (Italian ''Università degli Studi di Perugia'') is a public-owned university based in Perugia, Italy. It was founded in 1308, as attested by the Bull issued by Pope Clement V certifying the birth of the Studium Generale. Th ...
.


Reasons

Michels stressed several factors that underlie the iron law of oligarchy. Darcy K. Leach summarized them briefly as: "Bureaucracy happens. If bureaucracy happens, power rises. Power corrupts." Any large organization, Michels pointed out, has to create a
bureaucracy The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
in order to maintain its efficiency as it becomes larger—many decisions have to be made daily that cannot be made by large numbers of disorganized people. For the organization to function effectively, centralization has to occur and power will end up in the hands of a few. Those few—the oligarchy—will use all means necessary to preserve and further increase their power. According to Michels, this process is further compounded as delegation is necessary in any large organization, as thousands—sometimes hundreds of thousands—of members cannot make decisions via
participatory democracy Participatory democracy, participant democracy or participative democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected rep ...
. This has to date been dictated by the lack of technological means for large numbers of people to meet and debate, and also by matters related to crowd psychology, as Michels argued that people feel a need to be led. Delegation, however, leads to specialization—to the development of knowledge bases, skills and resources among a leadership—which further alienates the leadership from the rank and file and entrenches the leadership in office. Michels also argued that for leaders in organizations, "The desire to dominate ... is universal. These are elementary psychological facts." Thus, they were prone to seek power and dominance. Bureaucratization and
specialization Specialization or Specialized may refer to: Academia * Academic specialization, may be a course of study or major at an academic institution or may refer to the field in which a specialist practices * Specialty (medicine), a branch of medical ...
are the driving processes behind the iron law. They result in the rise of a group of professional administrators in a
hierarchical organization A hierarchical organization or hierarchical organisation (see spelling differences) is an organizational structure where every entity in the organization, except one, is subordinate to a single other entity. This arrangement is a form of a hierar ...
, which in turn leads to the rationalization and routinization of
authority In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The N ...
and
decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...
, a process described first and perhaps best by
Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
, later by
John Kenneth Galbraith John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through t ...
, and to a lesser and more cynical extent by the
Peter principle The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until ...
. Bureaucracy by design leads to centralization of power by the leaders. Leaders also have control over sanctions and rewards. They tend to promote those who share their opinions, which inevitably leads to self-perpetuating oligarchy. People achieve leadership positions because they have above-average political skill (see
Charismatic authority Charismatic authority is a concept of leadership developed by the German sociologist Max Weber. It involves a type of organization or a type of leadership in which authority derives from the charisma of the leader. This stands in contrast to two o ...
). As they advance in their careers, their power and prestige increases. Leaders control the information that flows down the channels of communication, censoring what they do not want the rank-and-file to know. Leaders will also dedicate significant resources to persuade the rank-and-file of the rightness of their views. This is compatible with most societies: people are taught to obey those in positions of authority. Therefore, the rank and file show little initiative, and wait for the leaders to exercise their judgment and issue directives to follow.


Implications

The "iron law of oligarchy" states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop
oligarchic Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations. The relative structural fluidity in a small-scale democracy succumbs to "social viscosity" in a large-scale organization. According to the "iron law", democracy and large-scale organization are incompatible.


Examples and exceptions

An example that Michels used in his book was
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
's
Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Fo ...
.Darcy K. Leach
"The Iron Law of ''What'' Again? Conceptualizing Oligarchy Across Organizational Forms"
''Sociological Theory'', Volume 23, Number 3, September 2005, pp. 312-337(26).


Labour unions and Lipset's ''Union Democracy''

One of the best known exceptions to the iron law of oligarchy is the now defunct
International Typographical Union The International Typographical Union (ITU) was a US trade union for the printing trade for newspapers and other media. It was founded on May 3, 1852, in the United States as the National Typographical Union, and changed its name to the Interna ...
, described by
Seymour Martin Lipset Seymour Martin Lipset ( ; March 18, 1922 – December 31, 2006) was an American sociologist and political scientist (President of the American Political Science Association). His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union o ...
in his 1956 book, ''
Union Democracy Union democracy is a term referring to the governance of trade unions, in terms of the quality of election procedures at ensuring the executives of a union most accurately represent the interests of the members. Theory In 1911, a German sociolog ...
''. Lipset suggests a number of factors that existed in the ITU that are allegedly responsible for countering this tendency toward bureaucratic oligarchy. The first and perhaps most important has to do with the way the union was founded. Unlike many other unions (e.g., the CIO's
United Steel Workers of America The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, commonly known as the United Steelworkers (USW), is a general trade union with members across North America. Headqua ...
(USWA), and numerous other craft unions) which were organized from the top down, the ITU had a number of large, strong, local unions who valued their
autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...
, which existed long before the international was formed. This local autonomy was strengthened by the economy of the printing industry which operated in largely local and regional markets, with little competition from other geographical areas. Large locals continued to jealously guard this autonomy against encroachments by international officers. Second, the existence of factions helped place a check on the oligarchic tendencies that existed at the national headquarters. Leaders that are unchecked tend to develop larger salaries and more sumptuous lifestyles, making them unwilling to go back to their previous jobs. But with a powerful out faction ready to expose profligacy, no leaders dared take overly generous personal remuneration. These two factors were compelling in the ITU case. Lipset and his collaborators also cite a number of other factors which are specific to craft unions in general and the printing crafts in particular, including the homogeneity of the membership, with respect to their work and lifestyles, their identification with their craft, their more middle class lifestyle and pay. For this latter point he draws upon
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
who argued that a democratic polity was most likely where there was a large, stable middle class, and the extremes of wealth and poverty were not great. Finally, the authors note the irregular work hours which led shopmates to spend more of their leisure time together. These latter factors are less persuasive, since they do not apply to many industrial forms of organization, where the greatest amount of trade union democracy has developed in recent times.


University student unions

Titus Gregory uses Michels "iron law" to describe how the
democratic centralist Democratic centralism is a practice in which political decisions reached by voting processes are binding upon all members of the political party. It is mainly associated with Leninism, wherein the party's political vanguard of professional revol ...
structure of the
Canadian Federation of Students The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) is the largest student organization in Canada, representing over 530,000 students from across Canada. Formed in 1981, the stated goal of the Federation is to represent the collective voice of Canadian st ...
, consisting of individual student unions, encourages oligarchy. Titus Gregory argues that university
students' union A students' union, also known by many other names, is a student organization present in many colleges, universities, and high schools. In higher education, the students' union is often accorded its own building on the campus, dedicated to social, ...
s today "exhibit both oligarchical and democratic tendencies". Unlike trade unions they have an ideologically diverse membership, and frequently have competitive democratic elections covered by independent campus media who guard their independence. These factors are strongly democratizing influences, creating conditions similar to those described by Lipset about the ITU. However, Gregory argues student unions can also be highly undemocratic and oligarchical as a result of the transient membership of the students involved. Every year between one quarter and one half of the membership turns over, and Gregory argues this creates a situation where elected student leaders become dependent on student union staff for institutional memory and guidance. Since many students' unions extract compulsory fees from their transient membership, and many smaller colleges and/or commuter campus can extract this money with little accountability, oligarchical behaviour becomes encouraged. For example, Gregory points out how often student union election rules "operate under tyrannical rules and regulations" that are used frequently by those in power to disqualify or exclude would-be election challengers. Gregory concludes that students' unions can "resist the iron law of oligarchy" if they have "an engaged student community", an "independent student media", a "strong tradition of freedom of information", and an "unbiased elections authority" capable of administrating elections fairly.


Participatory subgroups and countervailing power

Jonathan Fox's 1992 study focuses on how participatory subgroups within a membership organization can generate a degree of countervailing power that can at least temporarily mitigate the "iron law of oligarchy."


Wikipedia

Research by Bradi Heaberlin and Simon DeDeo has found that the evolution of
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
's network of norms over time is consistent with the iron law of oligarchy. Their quantitative analysis is based on data-mining over a decade of article and user information. It shows the emergence of an oligarchy derived from competencies in five significant "clusters": administration, article quality, collaboration, formatting, and content policy. Heaberlin and DeDeo note, "The encyclopedia's core norms address universal principles, such as neutrality, verifiability, civility, and consensus. The ambiguity and interpretability of these abstract concepts may drive them to decouple from each other over time."


Adolf Gasser's solution for Michels' iron law of oligarchy

In his book , published in 1943 (first edition in German) with a second edition in 1947 (in German), Adolf Gasser stated the following requirements for a representative democracy in order to remain stable, unaffected by Michels' iron law of oligarchy: * Society has to be built up from bottom to top. As a consequence, society is built up by people, who are free and have the power to defend themselves with weapons. * These free people join or form local communities. These local communities are independent, which includes financial independence, and they are free to determine their own rules. * Local communities join together into a higher unit e.g. a canton. * There is no hierarchical bureaucracy. * There is competition between these local communities e.g. on services delivered or on taxes.


Reception

In 1954,
Maurice Duverger Maurice Duverger (5 June 1917 – 16 December 2014) was a French jurist, sociologist, political scientist and politician born in Angoulême, Charente. Starting his career as a jurist at the University of Bordeaux, Duverger became more and ...
expressed general agreement with Michels's thesis. In a 1953 study, C. W. Cassinelli argued that Michels's main thesis has "a high degree of general credibility", but argued that the statement of the theory was "inadequate" and that Michels's evidence for the theory was "inconclusive". In a 1966 article, political scientist Dankwart Rustow described Michels's thesis as "a brilliantly fallacious argument ''a fortiori''". Rustow stated that the experience of the social democratic parties of Europe could not be generalized for other political parties.
Josiah Ober Josiah Ober is an American historian of ancient Greece and classical political theorist. He is Tsakopoulos- Kounalakis Professor in honor of Constantine Mitsotakis, and professor of classics and political science, at Stanford University. His te ...
argues in ''Democracy and Knowledge'' that the experience of ancient Athens shows Michels's argument does not hold true; Athens was a large participatory democracy, yet it outperformed its hierarchical rivals. According to a 2000 article, "To the extent that contemporary scholars ask at all about social movement organizations, they tend to reinforce Michels’s claim that bureaucratized, established organizations are more conservative in goals and tactics, though usually without explicitly engaging the iron law debate." The study however found that the iron law was malleable, and that established labor unions could under certain circumstances revitalize and experience radical change in line with its members' desires. According to a 2005 study, "Despite almost a century of scholarly debate on this question ... there is still no consensus about whether and under what conditions Michels’s claim holds true." One criticism is that power does not necessarily corrupt the leadership of organizations, and that the structure of organizations can check leaders. Another criticism is that Michels does not outline the conditions under which his thesis could be falsified nor a clear definition of what constitutes oligarchy. The method that Michels uses has sometimes been characterized as a "crucial" or "least likely" case study, because he chose a case (the German Social Democratic Party) that is least likely to support his theory (because the German Social Democratic Party was an institution that had a democratic process and ideology).


Other

The iron law of oligarchy is similar to the concept in ''
The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism ''The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism'' is a fictional book in George Orwell's dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949). The book was supposedly written by Emmanuel Goldstein, the principal enemy of the state of Ocean ...
'', a
fictional book A fictional book is a text created specifically for a work in an imaginary narrative that is referred to, depicted, or excerpted in a story, book, film, or other fictional work, and which exists only in one or more fictional works. A fictional ...
in the
dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...
n novel ''
Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...
'' (1984) by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
, who had authored a review of
James Burnham James Burnham (November 22, 1905 – July 28, 1987) was an American philosopher and political theorist. He chaired the New York University Department of Philosophy; his first book was ''An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis'' (1931). Burn ...
's The Managerial Revolution several years earlier. that fictional book begins:, Part Two, Chapter IX


See also

* *
Elite theory In political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the State that seeks to describe and explain power relationships in contemporary society. The theory posits that a small minority, consisting of members of the economic elite and poli ...
*
Iron triangle (US politics) In United States politics, the "iron triangle" comprises the policy-making relationship among the congressional committees, the bureaucracy, and interest groups, as described in 1981 by Gordon Adams. Earlier mentions of this ‘iron triangle’ ...
* * * Parkinson's law *
Plato's five regimes The ''Republic'' ( grc-gre, Πολῑτείᾱ, Politeia; ) is a Socratic dialogue, authored by Plato around 375 BCE, concerning justice (), the order and character of the just city-state, and the just man. It is Plato's best-known work, an ...
* Post-democracy *
Public choice Public choice, or public choice theory, is "the use of economic tools to deal with traditional problems of political science". Gordon Tullock, 9872008, "public choice," ''The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics''. . Its content includes the s ...
*
Sortition In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a larger ...
* ''
The World Is Flat ''The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century'' is a book by Thomas L. Friedman that analyzes globalization, primarily in the early 21st century. The title is a metaphor for viewing the world as a level playing field in te ...
''


Notes


References

* Michels, Robert. 1915. ''Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy.'' Translated into English by
Eden Paul Maurice Eden Paul (27 September 1865, Sturminster Marshall – 1 December 1944) was a British socialist activist, physician, writer and translator.'Paul, Maurice Eden' in ''Who Was Who'' Early life Paul was the younger son of the publisher Charl ...
and Cedar Paul. New York: The Free Press. From the 1911 German source. * Wagner, Gustav. "Robert Michels und das eherne Gesetz der Oligarchie". In "Wer wählt, hat seine Stimme abgegeben". ''Graswurzel Revolution'' pp. 28.{{nonspecific, reason=This is a magazine. Which issue, what date?, date=February 2022 *Nodia, Ghia. "Democracy's Inevitable Elites". ''Journal of Democracy'' 31, no. 1 (2020): 75–87.


External links


Political Parties
by Robert Michels in PDF

By Frank W. Elwell. 'Oligarchy' section describes the Law. Last accessed on 27 May 2006. Political science theories Sociological theories Oligarchy Elite theory 1911 introductions Organizational theory