DHP Special: Revisiting “The Iron Law of Oligarchy”

by | Sep 30, 2024

DHP Special: Revisiting “The Iron Law of Oligarchy”

by | Sep 30, 2024

n this episode, CJ revisits DHP Episode 34, “The Iron Law of Oligarchy,” from 2014, in preparation for an upcoming mini-series on oligarchy & CJ’s argument that modern democracy is just oligarchy with extra steps.

Join CJ as he discusses:

  • A little bit about German sociologist Robert Michels, who first described this law
  • The Iron Law of Oligarchy as described by Michels in his early-20th century book Political Parties
  • The Iron Law of Oligarchy in other contexts
  • Some noteworthy exceptions to the Iron Law that various scholars have found, including the International Typographical Union, the New Left student movement of the 1960s, ancient Athens, and Wikipedia

Links

Like this episode?

You can throw CJ a $ tip via Paypal here:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=D6VUYSYQ4EU6L

Prof CJ

Prof CJ

Born and raised a Florida Man, CJ Killmer holds BA and MA degrees in
history. He taught college history from 2006 to 2022. In 2014, he
started the Dangerous History Podcast as an outlet for his radical
libertarian-revisionist takes on history, and in 2022 he resigned from
his college teaching position in order to pursue podcasting and other
independent content-creation projects full-time, free from the
constraints of conventional academia.

View all posts

Listen to The Dangerous History Podcast

Our Books

Shop books published by the Libertarian Institute.

libetarian institute longsleeve shirt

Support via Amazon Smile

Our Books

libertarian inst books

Recent Articles

Recent

Heavy Weather and Jets: Two Tales of the Crash

You recall that a rather spendy jet flew on its own for approx 11 minutes in 2023. The pilot of an F-35 fighter jet that briefly went missing in September 2023 before crashing made an "inappropriate" decision in ejecting from the aircraft, a Marine Corps investigation...

read more

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This