What Is an Oligarchy? Definition, Examples and Debates

Oligarchy in plain terms

An oligarchy is government by the few. A small, usually closed group controls the main levers of power, decides who gets in, and tends to run things in ways that protect its position and wealth. Everyone else has little real say, even if they can vote.

The few can be defined in different ways:

• Wealth. Great landowners, industrialists or financiers. This is the most common meaning today, and the form also called plutocracy.
• Family or clan. A handful of families that intermarry and pass down office.
• Party or military. A ruling party politburo or a council of officers.
• Religion or knowledge. A clerical class or a technical elite, which shades into theocracy or technocracy.

Oligarchy describes who really holds power, not the formal label on a constitution. A country can call itself a republic, hold elections and still be run by an oligarchy in practice. That is why the word is used both as a technical term and as a political accusation.

Where the idea comes from: Aristotle

The classic account is in Aristotle's Politics, written in the 4th century BC. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy summarizes, Aristotle sorted constitutions with two questions: how many people rule, and do they rule for the common good or for themselves?

So for Aristotle, aristocracy and oligarchy are both rule by the few. The difference is purpose. An aristocracy, in his ideal sense, is rule by the most virtuous for everyone's benefit. An oligarchy is rule by a few in their own interest.

Aristotle then added a twist. He argued that what really separates oligarchy from democracy is not the number of rulers but wealth and poverty: oligarchy is rule by the rich, democracy rule by the poor, and the rich happen to be few. Even if the wealthy were a majority, he suggested, their rule would still be oligarchic. That insight is why the word has been tied to money ever since. His practical recommendation was a mixed constitution, the "polity," which blends features of both and rests on a strong middle class.

Oligarchy vs related terms

These words overlap, and people often use them loosely. Here is how they are usually distinguished.

Many authoritarian regimes are oligarchies in practice. Political scientists who study single-party states and military juntas often describe a collective leadership in which no single person has total control.

The iron law of oligarchy

In 1911 the sociologist Robert Michels, a student of Max Weber, published a study of European socialist parties, especially the German Social Democrats. These parties were committed to democracy and equality. Yet Michels found that each was run by a small, entrenched leadership.

He concluded that this was not an accident but an iron law. Large organizations need full-time leaders, specialists and a bureaucracy. Those leaders gain expertise, control of communications and funds, and an interest in keeping their jobs. Ordinary members lack the time and information to check them. In the line most often quoted from the book, whoever says organization says oligarchy.

Michels' idea has been influential and contested. Supporters see it confirmed in parties, unions, charities and corporations. Critics point to organizations with real internal competition, rotating leadership or strong member votes, and argue the law is a tendency rather than a law.

Examples of oligarchy

Ancient and early modern

Many Greek city-states, including Corinth and, at times, Athens itself, were run by narrow councils of wealthy citizens. The Republic of Venice was governed for centuries by a closed circle of noble families who elected the Doge from among themselves. Historians often cite both as classic oligarchies.

Russia after the Soviet Union

The modern use of "oligarch" took off in Russia in the 1990s. During the privatizations under Boris Yeltsin, especially the loans for shares auctions of 1995 and 1996, a small group of bankers and businessmen gained control of major oil, metals and media companies and became powerful political players. Critics argue the auctions were rigged and created a class of politically connected billionaires. The economist Daniel Treisman, in a 2010 NBER paper, agreed that the process looked corrupt but argued the stakes were smaller than often claimed and that the firms later performed better than comparable state companies. After 2000, most oligarchs had to accept the authority of the state under Vladimir Putin.

The term is now applied to wealthy, politically connected business figures in Ukraine, Central Asia and elsewhere, and sometimes, more loosely, to billionaires in Western democracies.

Wealth defense theory

Political scientist Jeffrey Winters, in Oligarchy (2011), offered a modern definition. For Winters, oligarchs are people whose extreme wealth gives them unusual power, and oligarchy is the politics of wealth defense: using that power to protect fortunes from seizure or taxation. He describes four types, from warring oligarchs who defend their wealth with private armies to "civil oligarchies" in which the state protects property and the rich focus on lowering taxes and shaping law. He argued that the United States fits the civil type. Reviewers praised the framework but some argued it focuses too narrowly on wealth.

Is the United States an oligarchy?

This is where the debate gets heated, and serious scholars land in different places.

The case that America leans oligarchic

In 2014, political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page published a study in Perspectives on Politics that examined 1,779 policy questions. They found that the preferences of economic elites and business-oriented interest groups had substantial independent influence on US policy, while average citizens and mass-based groups had little or no independent influence. The paper was widely described in the press as showing the US is an oligarchy, a word the authors themselves used cautiously.

Others point to the cost of campaigns, lobbying, and the concentration of wealth as signs of what critics on the left call plutocracy. Some on the populist right make a parallel argument about a closed establishment of donors, consultants and corporate leaders. See left populism vs right populism for how each side frames the problem, and our guide to populism.

The case against

Critics of the oligarchy label make several points. Peter Enns, writing in the same journal in 2015, found that the rich and the middle class agree on most policies, so the middle class often gets its way even if politicians follow the rich, which he called coincidental representation. Other researchers questioned the data and methods. Defenders of the American system also note that voters regularly reject well-funded candidates, that wealthy donors back opposing sides, and that courts, a free press and federalism disperse power. On this view, unequal influence is a real problem, but the US remains a democracy.

Older roots of the worry

The fear is not new. James Madison worried in Federalist No. 10 about factions, including the divide between those who hold property and those who do not. John Adams wrote about a "natural aristocracy" of wealth and talent that every society produces and that a constitution must contain. Alexis de Tocqueville warned that an industrial aristocracy could emerge inside a democratic society.

Remedies people propose

People who worry about oligarchy suggest very different fixes, depending on their politics:

• Campaign finance and lobbying rules, favored by many on the center-left
• Breaking up concentrated markets through antitrust, supported by some on both the left and the populist right
• Spreading ownership widely, the aim of distributism, or taxing land value, the idea behind Georgism
• Redistribution and stronger unions, favored by democratic socialists
• Smaller government with fewer favors to sell, the argument of many classical liberals and libertarians, who say crony capitalism grows when the state controls more of the economy

Each side tends to see the others' remedy as part of the problem, which is one reason the debate continues.

Find where you fit

Your view of oligarchy usually tracks two questions: how worried you are about economic inequality, and how much you trust the state to fix it. People who answer "very" and "a lot" often land left; people who answer "very" and "not much" often land libertarian or populist right.

Take the Political Values Test or the Political Compass Test to see where you stand on economics and authority. For a fast check, try the Left or Right Quiz. You can also browse the economists and philosophers who shaped these arguments, or read our guides to democracy vs republic and the two-party system.