n 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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