In 1911 German sociologist Robert Michels wrote a book - On the Sociology of Political Parties in Modern Democracies that is no longer in print. Tech Central Station writer Lee Harris looks at the central premise of oligarchy and why we may find thinking about this uncomfortable.

There are several reason for the inevitability of oligarchic rule.

First, the vast majority of human beings in any society must devote the overwhelming portion of their available energy to looking after their own immediate survival, as well as the survival of their family or their associates.

Second, the day-to-day operation of any government, beyond a certain degree of sophistication, tends to revolve around the boring and tedious details of public administration. How many people want to devote good parts of their free time — assuming that they have any — to discussion about whether there should be a stoplight on a busy intersection on the other side of town that they have not been to, and are likely never to go to?

Third, those few who are in charge of the administration of a government tend to develop routines and procedures that are so intricate and convoluted than no one who has not spent many years mastering them can hope to make any headway against them — the phenomenon commonly known as red-tape.

Fourth, those in power will tend to co-opt into power those with whom they share a common bond. For example, they may hire their relatives or their school chums or members of their own club. Even so called meritocracies are subject to the same oligarchic pressure, since merit is invariably defined as whatever virtue happens to be most conspicuously possessed by the ruling elite.

As stated above, Michels’ arguments were originally designed to debunk the myth that socialism could provide a genuine democracy, but the same arguments can be used to debunk the idea that democracy can be assured by purely formal devices such as the writing of a constitution or the holding of free and fair elections.

If Robert Michels is right, then the modern liberal vision of a worldwide democratic revolution becomes merely another pipe dream, and one that is every bit as naïve and dangerous as the pipe dream of those socialists who genuinely believed that they were working to bring about Heaven on Earth through the overthrow of the capitalist system. From this perspective, the wisest and most sensible course to chart for those who are interested in improving the lot of the human race is not to push for sweeping democratic reforms, but to fight against corruption, cronyism, and nepotism among the governing elite — in short, to reform them, rather than replace them.

via Rev. Mike