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

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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.

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