Blackwell Reference Online

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As originally defined by Plato and Aristotle, this term for rule by the few, based generally on the possession of wealth, was contrasted with monarchy (rule by a single person) and democracy (rule by the people). In modern social thought the term has been largely displaced by that of elite (see E lite theory ), although references to oligarchical tendencies are still made in analysing the structure of power in organizations of various types. The best-known use of the term in twentieth-century social thought was by Roberto Michels (1911 ) who argued, from his study of the German Social Democratic Party, that a sharp distinction between the leading officials and the rank and file, resulting in rule by the few, necessarily developed in all large-scale organizations (even socialist ones). This view, formulated as the ‘iron law of oligarchy’, is clearly related to Gaetano Mosca's proposition that the ‘organized minority’ will always dominate the unorganized majority, and Michels went on to examine the ‘technical and administrative causes’ which produced such domination. Michels's conception was largely derived from the elite theorists, and it was later developed in a particularly anti-democratic form when he became a supporter of Mussolini and the fascist movement, invoking Max Weber's notion of the ‘charismatic leader’ to explain his new allegiance ( Mommsen, 1981 ). The iron law ... log in or subscribe to read full text