An oligarchy (from Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of ὀλιγαρχία, oligarkhía[1]) is a form of power structure in which power Political power is a type of power held by a group in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth. There are many ways to obtain possession of such power. At the nation-state level political legitimacy for political power is held by the representatives of national sovereignty. Political effectively rests with a small segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, or military control. The word oligarchy is from the Greek words "ὀλίγος" (olígos), "a few"[2] and the verb "ἄρχω" (archo), "to rule, to govern, to command".[3] Such states are often controlled by politically powerful families whose children are heavily conditioned and mentored to be heirs of the power of the oligarchy.
Oligarchies have been tyrannical In classical politics, a tyrant is one who has taken power by his or her own means as opposed to hereditary or constitutional power. This mode of rule is referred to as tyranny (τυραννίς turannis) throughout history, being completely reliant on public servitude to exist. Although Aristotle Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most pioneered the use of the term as a synonym for rule by the rich, for which the exact term is plutocracy The word plutocracy is derived from the ancient Greek root ploutos, meaning wealth and kratos, meaning to rule or to govern, oligarchy is not always a rule by wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged group, and do not have to be connected by bloodlines as in a monarchy A monarchy is a form of government in which all political power is absolutely or nominally lodged with an individual or individuals. As a political entity, the monarch is the head of state, generally until their death or abdication, and "is wholly set apart from all other members of the state." The person who heads a monarchy is called a. Some city-states from ancient Greece Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian were oligarchies.
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Examples of oligarchies
Some examples include Vaishali Vaishali or Vesali was the capital city of the Licchavi, one of world's first democratic republics, in the Vajjian Confederacy (Vrijji) mahajanapada, around the 6th century BC. It was here that Gautama Buddha preached his last sermon before his death ca 483 BCE, then in 383 BCE the Second Buddhist council was convened here by King Kalasoka. Also, the French First Republic The French First Republic was founded on 22 September 1792, by the newly established National Convention. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First French Empire in 1804 under Napoleon. This period is characterized by the fall of the monarchy, the establishment of the National Convention and the infamous Reign of Terror, the government under the Directory The Executive Directory was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate. The period of this regime (2 November 1795 until 10 November 1799), commonly known as the Directory (or Directoire) era, constitutes the second to last stage of the French Revolution, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (only the nobility could vote).In the time of the ancient Greeks, Sparta Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military land- was an oligarchy that clashed with the democratic city-state of Athens The Greek capital has a population of 745,514 within its administrative limits and a land area of 39 km2 (15 sq mi). The urban area of Athens extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3,130,841 (in 2001) and a land area of 412 km2 (159 sq mi). According to Eurostat, the Athens Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) is the 8th most,(these two nations eventually clashed in the Peloponnesian war in which Sparta defeated Athens causing the city state to rule much of Greece for some time). A modern example of oligarchy could be seen in South Africa Coordinates: 29°02′46″S 25°03′47″E / 29.046°S 25.063°E The Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a 2,798 kilometres coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe; to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland; while Lesotho is an independent during the twentieth century. Here, the basic characteristics of oligarchy are particularly easy to observe, since the South African form of oligarchy was based on race The term race or racial group usually refers to the categorization of humans into populations or ancestral groups on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics. The physical features commonly seen as indicating race are salient visual traits such as skin color, cranial or facial features and hair texture. Conceptions of race, as well. After the Second Boer War The Second Boer War , commonly referred to as The Boer War and also known as the South African War (outside South Africa), the Anglo-Boer War (among most South Africans) and in Afrikaans as the Anglo-Boereoorlog or Tweede Vryheidsoorlog ("Second War of Liberation"), or the Engelse oorlog (English War)[citation needed] was fought from 11, a tacit agreement or understanding that was reached between English- and Afrikaans Elsewhere in Africa, notably Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland-speaking whites. Together, they made up about twenty percent of the population, but this small percentage ruled the vast non-white and mixed-race population. Whites had access to virtually all the educational Education in the largest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another and trade Trade is the voluntary, often asymmetric, exchange of goods, services, or money. Trade is also called commerce or transaction. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and services. Later one side of the barter were the metals, precious metals , bill, paper money. Modern opportunities, and they proceeded to deny this to the black majority even further than before. Although this process had been going on since the mid-17th- 18th century, after 1948 it became official government policy and became known worldwide as apartheid Bantustan · District Six · Robben Island . This lasted until the arrival of democracy Democracy is a political form of government where governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy). The term comes from the Greek: δημοκρατία – (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) & in South Africa in 1994, punctuated by the transition to a democratically-elected government dominated by the black majority.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the Russian: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (help·info), tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, IPA [sɐˈjʊs sɐˈvʲeʦkʲɪx səʦɪ in 1991 1991 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar in the 20th century. It was the second year of the 1990s, and is usually considered the final year of the Cold War that had began in the late 1940s. During the year, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed into fifteen sovereign republics. A U.N.-authorized coalition, privately owned Russia-based multinational corporations, including producers of petroleum, natural gas, and metal have become oligarchs. Privatization allowed executives to amass phenomenal wealth and power almost overnight. In May 2004, the Russian edition of Forbes identified 36 of these oligarchs as being worth at least $1 billion.[4]
A well-known fictional oligarchy is represented by the Party in George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense, revolutionary opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four Nineteen Eighty-Four , by George Orwell, published in 1949, is a dystopian novel about the totalitarian regime of the Party, an oligarchical collectivist society where life in the Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, public mind control, and the voiding of citizens' rights. In the.
Modern democracy as oligarchy
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Robert Michels Robert Michels was a German sociologist who wrote on the political behavior of intellectual elites and contributed to elite theory. He is best known for his book Political Parties, which contains a description of the "iron law of oligarchy." He was a student of Max Weber, a friend and disciple of Werner Sombart and Achille Loria believed that any political system eventually evolves into an oligarchy. He called this the iron law of oligarchy. According to this school of thought, modern democracies Democracy is a political form of government where governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy). The term comes from the Greek: δημοκρατία – (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) & should be considered as oligarchies. In these systems, actual differences between viable political rivals are small, the oligarchic elite CERD · CEDAW · CDE · ILO C111 · ILO C100 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR impose strict limits on what constitutes an acceptable and respectable political position, and politicians' careers depend heavily on unelected economic and media elites. Thus the popular phrase: there is only one political party, the incumbent The incumbent, in politics, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to elections, in which races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbent. For example, in the 2004 United States presidential election, George W. Bush was the incumbent, because he was the president in the party.
Corporate Oligarchy (Corporatocracy)
Corporate A corporation is an institution that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business oligarchy is a form of power, governmental or operational, where such power effectively rests with a small, elite group of inside individuals, sometimes from a small group of educational institutions, or influential economic entities or devices, such as banks, commercial entities that act in complicity with, or at the whim of the oligarchy, often with little or no regard for constitutionally protected prerogative In law, a prerogative is an exclusive right given from a government or state and invested in an individual or group, the content of which is separate from the body of rights enjoyed under the general law of the normative state. It was a common facet of feudal law. Monopolies are sometimes granted to state-controlled entities, such as the Royal Charter granted to the East India Company The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. The oldest among several similarly formed European East India Companies, the Company was granted an English Royal Charter, under the name, or privileged bargaining rights to unions (labor monopolies) with very partisan political interests.
Athenian techniques to prevent the rise of oligarchy
Especially during the Fourth Century BC, after the restoration of democracy from oligarchical coups, the Athenians used the drawing of lots Sortition, also known as allotment or drawing lots, is an equal-chance method of selection by some form of lottery, and most commonly refers to selecting decision makers as a random sample from a larger preselected pool of candidates. In Ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the primary method for appointing officials, and its use was widely for selecting government officers in order to counteract what the Athenians acutely saw as a tendency toward oligarchy in government if a professional governing class were allowed to use their skills for their own benefit.[5] They drew lots from large groups of adult volunteers as a selection technique for civil servants performing judicial, executive, and administrative functions (archai, boulē, and hēliastai).[6] They even used lots for very important posts, such as judges and jurors in the political courts (nomothetai), which had the power to overrule the Assembly.[7] It is often mistaken that a tyranny and an oligarchy are the same, however they are very similar.
See also
Government terms:
- Aristocracy Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few of the most prominent citizens rule. The term was derived from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". See Aristocracy (class) for the historical roots of the term. The concept evolved in Ancient Greece, whereby a council of prominent citizens was commonly used and
- Elitism CERD · CEDAW · CDE · ILO C111 · ILO C100 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR
- Crony capitalism Crony capitalism is a pejorative term describing an allegedly capitalist economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between businesspeople and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and so forth
- Democracy Democracy is a political form of government where governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy). The term comes from the Greek: δημοκρατία – (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) &
- Dictatorship A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:
- Form of government A form of government, or form of state governance, refers to the set of political institutions by which a government of a state is organized in order to exert its powers over a house in the congress body politic. Synonyms include "regime type" and "system of government"
- Meritocracy Meritocracy is a system of government or other organization wherein appointments are made and responsibilities assigned to individuals based upon demonstrated intelligence and ability
- Netocracy Netocracy was a term invented by the editorial board of the American technology magazine Wired in the early 1990s. A portmanteau of internet and aristocracy, netocracy refers to a perceived global upper-class that bases its power on a technological advantage and networking skills, in comparison to what is portrayed as a bourgeoisie of a gradually
- Oligopoly In Economics, an oligopoly is a market form in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of sellers . The word is derived, by analogy with "monopoly", from the Greek ὀλίγοι (oligoi) "few" + πωλειν (polein) "to sell". Because there are few sellers, each oligopolist is likely to be aware of
- Plutocracy The word plutocracy is derived from the ancient Greek root ploutos, meaning wealth and kratos, meaning to rule or to govern
- Political family A political family is a family in which several members are involved in politics, particularly electoral politics. Members may be related by blood or marriage; often several generations or multiple siblings may be involved
- Theocracy Theocracy is a form of government in which a god or deity is recognized as the state's supreme civil ruler, or in a higher sense, a form of government in which a state is governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided. In Common Greek, "theocracy" means a rule [kra′tos] by God [the.os′]. For
- Timocracy The more extreme forms of timocracy where power derives from wealth rather than honor, may shift in their form and become a plutocracy where the wealthy and powerful use their power to entrench their wealth
- Power behind the throne The phrase power behind the throne refers to a person or group that informally exercises the real power of an office. In politics, it most commonly refers to a spouse, aide, or advisor of a political leader who serves as de facto leader, setting policy through influence or manipulation
- Russian oligarchs Business oligarch is a near-synonym of the term "business magnate", with a divergence in that business oligarchs represent informal power over a certain region or country because of their increased wealth. The choice of the word oligarch, which theoretically means "one of the few rulers", denotes the significant influence such
- Fascism Fascism, pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/, is a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy. Fascism was originally founded by Italian national syndicalists in World War I who combined left-wing and
- Anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. It seeks to diminish or even abolish authority in the conduct of human relations. Anarchists may widely disagree on what additional criteria are required in anarchism. The Oxford Companion to
Relevant authors:
References
- ^ ὀλιγαρχία, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
- ^ ὀλίγος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
- ^ ἄρχω, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
- ^ http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/60263/marshall-i-goldman/putin-and-the-oligarchs, Putin and the Oligarchs, Foreign Affairs. November/December 2004
- ^ M.H. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes 97, 308, et al. (Oxford, 1991)
- ^ Bernard Manin, Principles of Representative Government 11-24 (1997).
- ^ Bernard Manin, Principles of Representative Government 19-23 (1997).
- Ostwald, M. Oligarchia: The Development of a Constitutional Form in Ancient Greece (Historia Einzelschirften; 144). Stuttgart: Steiner, 2000 (ISBN 3-515-07680-8).
External links
- Online Text: Leonard Whibley, Greek Oligarchies: Their Character and Organisation (1869), still the only full-scale treatment of oligarchy in Classical Greece.
- M Hollingsworth and S Lansley, Londongrad, From Russia With Cash, 2009, 4th Estate
Categories: Oligarchy | Forms of government | Greek loanwords | Political culture | Political philosophy
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Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:30:00 GMT+00:00
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