More Than a Rock, 2nd Edition

Contemporary Oligarchy15

If I did what has already been done, I would be a plagiarist and would consider myself unworthy; so I do something different and people call me a scoundrel. I’d rather be a scoundrel than a plagiarist!

—Paul Gauguin

Sociologist Robert Michels spent much of his career studying the dynamics of power in organizations. His research resulted in a startling conclusion known as “The Iron Law of Oligarchy,” which suggests that all organizations, regardless of their original mission, structure, or how democratic they aspire to be, inevitably evolve to serve the interests of a small elite. Since its publication in 1911, many studies have attempted to seek exceptions to the Iron Law. Very few such exceptions were documented, and ...