Oligarchy (from Ancient Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía) ‘rule by few’; from ὀλίγος (olígos) ‘few’ and ἄρχω (árkhō) ‘to rule, command’) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, religious, political, or military control.
Throughout history, power structures considered to be oligarchies have often been viewed as coercive, relying on public obedience or oppression to exist. Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as meaning rule by the rich, contrasting it with aristocracy, arguing that oligarchy was the perverted form of aristocracy.
Types, Minority rule
The consolidation of power by a dominant religious or ethnic minority can be considered a form of oligarchy. Examples include South Africa during apartheid, Liberia under Americo-Liberians, the Sultanate of Zanzibar, and Rhodesia. In these cases, oligarchic rule was often tied to the legacy of colonialism.
In the early 20th century, Robert Michels expanded on this idea in his Iron Law of Oligarchy He argued that even democracies, like all large organizations, tend to become oligarchic due to the necessity of dividing labor, which ultimately results in a ruling class focused on maintaining its power.
Putative oligarchies
Business groups may be considered oligarchies if they meet the following criteria:
They are the largest private owners in the country.
They possess sufficient political power to influence their own interests.
The owners control multiple businesses, coordinating activities across sectors.
Intellectual oligarchies
George Bernard Shaw coined the concept of an intellectual oligarchy in his play Major Barbara (1907). In the play, Shaw criticizes the control of society by intellectual elites and expresses a desire for the empowerment of the common people:
I now want to give the common man weapons against the intellectual man. I love the common people. I want to arm them against the lawyer, the doctor, the priest, the literary man, the professor, the artist, and the politician, who, once in authority, is the most dangerous, disastrous, and tyrannical of all the fools, rascals, and impostors. I want a democratic power strong enough to force the intellectual oligarchy to use its genius for the general good or else perish.
Countries perceived as oligarchies
Jeffrey A. Winters and Benjamin I. Page have described Colombia, Indonesia, Russia, Singapore and the United States as oligarchies.
The Philippines
Monopolies in the Philippines (1965–1986)
During the Presidency of Ferdinand Marcos from 1965 to 1986, several monopolies arose in the Philippines, primarily linked to the Marcos family and their close associates. Analysts have described this period, and even subsequent decades, as an era of oligarchy in the Philippines.
President Rodrigo Duterte, elected in 2016, promised to dismantle the oligarchy during his presidency. However, corporate oligarchy persisted throughout his tenure. While Duterte criticized prominent tycoons such as the Ayalas and Manny Pangilinan, corporate figures allied with Duterte, including Dennis Uy of Udenna Corporation, benefitted during his administration.
Russian oligarchs
Since the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent Privatization of state-owned assets, a class of Russian oligarchs emerged. These oligarchs gained control of significant portions of the economy, especially in the energy, metals, and natural resources sectors. Many of these individuals maintained close ties with government officials, particularly the president, leading some to characterize modern Russia as an oligarchy intertwined with the state.
Russian oligarchs.
64% of Russian billionaires owe their wealth to political connections, while the world average is only 10%. The share of billionaire founders of companies in Russia, on the contrary, is 10.8%, while in China it is 40.1%.
1990s.
In Russia, the term «oligarch» was not yet used until the second half of the 1990s; it was replaced by the term «nouveau riche», which began to be widely used to designate a narrow circle of politically influential major entrepreneurs. They included the heads of the largest financial and industrial groups in the country.
In our country, oligarchs were those major businessmen who were striving for power, introducing their people to various government posts, creating and supporting corrupt practices of the bureaucracy. Having become monstrously rich as a result of the predatory conditions of privatization, this group, merging with the state apparatus, took a special position in the country during Yeltsin’s presidency.
— From the speech of the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation Yevgeny Primakov at the meeting of the Mercury Club on January 14, 2008.
In the late 1990s, the term acquired the character of a colloquial word, usually with a pronounced negative connotation. The ironic term «semibankirshchina» also became widespread in the media as the name of a group of seven representatives of large Russian banks, financial and financial-industrial groups that played a significant political and economic role, owned the media and, as is assumed, informally united, despite internal disagreements, with the goal of ensuring the re-election of B. N. Yeltsin for another term in the 1996 presidential elections.
2000s.
In May 2003, the National Strategy Council prepared a report «An Oligarchic Coup Is Being Prepared in Russia.» It stated:
Oligarchs set the standards for a nihilistic attitude toward the state and stimulate illegal activity in economic life. They consistently resist the establishment of equal rules for doing business, widely use their influence in government agencies, openly trample on legal norms, and are the main sources of corruption.
During his first presidential term, Putin launched a fight against some of the oligarchs of the 1990s (the Yukos case). However, Putin’s subsequent period in power was accompanied by the flourishing of the oligarchy in Russia.
American professor Marshall Goldman, author of the book Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia (2008), introduced the term «siloarch» (from «silovik»), referring to the economic model of Putinism, where significant resources are controlled by people from the Soviet and Russian special services.
At the end of February 2009, political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin said: «Oligarchic capitalism, nomenklatura capitalism, if you like, is ineffective by definition. It is good when you have a huge flow of petroleum oil that is extracted from wells, and you need to divide it. Sooner or later, but this mechanism, based on the division of ready resources, is exhausting itself — you need to come up with some new types of resources, create some new types of added value. And for this, you no longer just need to chop off, divide pieces, which the security forces are very good at doing, but to generate. And here comes the time when suddenly these, generally smart, gifted, brave people, whom we call «oligarchs», turn out to be out of step with the rigid system of the environment: they die out like mammoths — the climate has changed and smaller mammals are needed that are better at finding food for themselves. But they begin to starve, roughly speaking, and very quickly.» The American newspaper New York Times wrote on March 7, 2009 that Russian oligarchs could soon lose their enormous fortunes: the global financial and economic crisis threatens to throw them into the dustbin of history.
As it turned out in March 2010: “The number of billionaires in Russia has almost doubled: 62 against last year’s 32. But still, the number of billionaires has not reached the pre-crisis level of 2008, when there were more than 100. The richest Russian, Vladimir Lisin, ranks 32nd in the overall rankings (Forbes magazine), with his fortune estimated at $15.8 billion. Of the notable Russians who have ceased to be billionaires, the most famous is Boris Berezovsky” (according to Forbes).
Iran
Main articles: Khomeinism and Velayat-e-faqih
The Islamic Republic of Iran, established after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, is sometimes described as a clerical oligarchy. Its ruling system, known as Velayat-e-Faqih (Governance of the Jurist), places power in the hands of a small group of high-ranking Shia clerics, led by the Supreme Leader. This group holds significant influence over the country’s legislative, military, and economic affairs, and critics argue that this system concentrates power in a religious elite, marginalizing other voices within society.
Ukrainian oligarchs
Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, a powerful class of business elites, known as Ukrainian oligarchs, has played a significant role in the country’s politics and economy. These oligarchs gained control of state assets during the rapid privatization that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. By 2021, Ukraine passed a law aimed at curbing oligarchic influence on politics and the economy.
United States
Several commentators and scholars have suggested that the United States demonstrates characteristics of an oligarchy, particularly in relation to the concentration of wealth and political influence among a small elite. (list of top donors)
Economist Simon Johnson argued that the rise of an American financial oligarchy became particularly prominent following the 2008 financial crisis. This financial elite has been described as wielding significant power over both the economy and political decisions.
Former President Jimmy Carter in 2015 characterized the United States as an «oligarchy with unlimited political bribery» following the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision, which removed limits on donations to political candidates.
In 2014, a study by political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University argued that the United States’ political system does not primarily reflect the preferences of its average citizens. Their analysis of policy outcomes between 1981 and 2002 suggested that wealthy individuals and business groups held substantial influence over political decisions, often sidelining the majority of Americans. While the United States maintains democratic features such as regular elections, freedom of speech, and widespread suffrage, the study noted that policy decisions are disproportionately influenced by economic elites.
However, the study received criticism from other scholars, who argued that the influence of average citizens should not be discounted and that the conclusions about oligarchic tendencies were overstated. Gilens and Page defended their research, reiterating that while they do not label the United States an outright oligarchy, they found substantial evidence of economic elites dominating certain areas of policy-making.
