Iron Law of Oligarchy

Conceptual Overview

Oligarchy is located at the core of organizational power; it is the means of monopolizing and perpetuating resources of power through perfectly legal and rational processes. Michels's basic reasoning was that organization precludes democracy, because of immanent oligarchical tendencies. According to Michels, political leadership is incompatible with democracy. Organization necessitates oligarchy. Simply, any kind of association becomes more-or-less rapidly a minority of directors dominating a majority of those directed.

Power struggles are evident as the core process of internal oligarchization and thus create a paradox of democracy. According to Michels, organization necessitates delegation and dispersion of authority. Even organizations that are democratic in conception, in the goals they promote as inclusive reasons for membership, will fail to be democratic in the procedures and rules they design and use; they may be democratic in the plurality of interests they objectively and institutionally represent, rather than in the causes they actually promote through their strategies. Consequently, even if organizational forms end up transforming democratic regimes into oligarchic regimes, this influence will be exercised concretely through power struggles. It is simply the underlying arguments and criteria, deciding who governs, which are likely to evolve.

Oligarchy derives from the political process of the “professionalization of leadership” more-or-less directly, because the interests of the experts in leadership are expressed in a struggle between leaders, who, in striving to compete to solidify their own personal positions, clash with those of the “masses.” Oligarchy stands diametrically opposed to democracy; thus, if we are to understand oligarchy we must understand debates about democracy in relation to organizations.

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