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The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory first developed by the German-born Italian sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book Political Parties. [1] It asserts that rule by an elite, or oligarchy , is inevitable as an "iron law" within any democratic organization as part of the "tactical and technical necessities" of the organization.
[1] [2] He is best known for his book Political Parties, published in 1911, which contains a description of the "iron law of oligarchy." [3] [4] [5] He was a friend and disciple of Max Weber, Werner Sombart and Achille Loria.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization. [85] This is related to the iron law of oligarchy and to the Self-licking ice cream cone.
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The term iron law is derived from Goethe's "great, eternal iron laws" in his poem Das Göttliche, (On The Divine) and may refer to: Hoffman's iron law, regarding speaker system design; Iron Law, a 1984 painting by Odd Nerdrum; Iron law of population, from Thomas Malthus' An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)
Oligarchy (from Ancient Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía) 'rule by few'; from ὀλίγος (olígos) 'few' and ἄρχω (árkhō) 'to rule, command') [1] [2] [3] is a form of government in which power rests with a small number of people.
This is known as the iron law of oligarchy. In his book "Gemeindefreiheit als Rettung Europas" which was published in 1943 (first edition in German) and a second edition in 1947 (in German), Adolf Gasser stated the following requirements for a representative democracy in order to remain stable, unaffected by the iron law of oligarchy:
Michels argued that this amounted to an iron law of oligarchy: all groups, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, eventually and inevitably develop into oligarchies with swollen bureaucracies. Michels himself, after falling out with the German Social Democrat Party, migrated to Italy and joined Mussolini's Fascist Party.