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The Law of Oligarchy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

C. W. Cassinelli
C. W. Cassinelli
Affiliation:
Whitman College
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Extract

One of the most interesting generalizations in the field of social science is Robert Michels' “iron law of oligarchy.” The commentary on this hypothesis has usually been motivated by a desire to attack or to support it; seldom has anyone made a serious attempt to understand it before passing judgment. This situation is partially Michels' responsibility, since his statement of the law of oligarchy is badly confused and quite incomplete. Nevertheless, the notion that “oligarchies prevail” has a high degree of general credibility, and even the realization that Michels' statement of it is inadequate and his evidence for it inconclusive does not destroy its intellectual appeal.

In this paper I shall be concerned exclusively with an attempt to make the law of oligarchy understandable. This involves formulating the generalization as precisely as possible, defining its important terms, and stating its sources of evidence. This is not an investigation into what Michels “really meant,” but an examination of what he said that is good political theory. I shall feel free to make any changes or additions which appear necessary to me. But such alterations will be primarily matters of definition and logical organization.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , September 1953 , pp. 773 - 784
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1953

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References

1 Michels, Robert, Political Parties, tr. by Eden, and Paul, Cedar (Glencoe, Ill., 1949), pp. 377, 390, 401, 402Google Scholar.

2 Barnard, Chester I., The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, Mass., 1938)Google Scholar, Ch. VI, sec. I.

3 Ibid., p. 87.

4 Barnard, op. cit., pp. 102, 104n.

5 Weber, Max, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, tr. by Parsons, and Henderson, (New York, 1947), p. 151Google Scholar.

6 Weber, loc. cit.

7 See Friedrich, Carl J., “Oligarchy,” Encyclopaedia of the Social Science, Vol. 11, pp. 462–65Google Scholar.

8 Michels never defines his concept of oligarchy. For his somewhat inconsistent suggestions regarding the nature of oligarchy, see Political Parties, pp. 136, 144, 145, 154, 389, 390.

9 Michels, as usual, is very imprecise: all five meanings can be found, undifferentiated, in his book; but his chief sin is his unannounced shift in emphasis from (4) lack of control (pp. 136, 144, 145, 154) to (5) exploitation (pp. 389, 390). Mosca, Gaetano in The Ruling Class, tr. by Kahn, (New York, 1939), pp. 50, 154, 329Google Scholar, also mixes meanings (4) and (5), and moreover stresses the obvious by emphasizing meaning (1), that political direction is the function of a minority.

10 See Friedrich, “Oligarchy,” cited above, n. 7.

11 Cf. Michels, op. cit., p. 156, and Mosca, op. cit., p. 51.

12 Friedrich, Carl J., Constitutional Government and Democracy (Boston, 1946), p. 589Google Scholar.

13 For Michels' statement of this theory see his Political Parties, p. 378.

14 Op. cit., p. 127.

15 The respective sources for these generalizations are the following pages of Political Parties: 25, 27, 28, 36.

16 Political Parties, pp. 49, 53, 60, 86, 95, 206, 373.

17 The Ruling Class, p. 329.

18 Political Parties, p. 26; see also Weber, op. cit., p. 415.

19 Political Parties, pp. 400–8.

20 As David Spitz thinks; see his Patterns of Anti-Democratic Thought (New York, 1949), pp. 27–29Google Scholar.

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