In this episode, CJ revisits DHP Episode 34, “The Iron Law of Oligarchy,” from 2014, in preparation for an upcoming mini-series on oligarchy & CJ’s argument that modern democracy is just oligarchy with extra steps.
Join CJ as he discusses:
- A little bit about German sociologist Robert Michels, who first described this law
- The Iron Law of Oligarchy as described by Michels in his early-20th century book Political Parties
- The Iron Law of Oligarchy in other contexts
- Some noteworthy exceptions to the Iron Law that various scholars have found, including the International Typographical Union, the New Left student movement of the 1960s, ancient Athens, and Wikipedia
Links
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