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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.
The "iron law of oligarchy" states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations. The relative structural fluidity in a ...
Rule by an autocracy or oligarchy with a power source predicated on a political party or stratocracy; characterized by the rejection of political plurality. Band society: Rule by a government based on small (usually family) unit with a semi-informal hierarchy, with strongest (either physical strength or strength of character) as leader. Bureaucracy
More generally, an oligarch (from Ancient Greek ὀλίγος (oligos) 'few' and ἄρχειν (archein) 'rule') is a "member of an oligarchy; a person who is part of a small group holding power in a state". [3]
Meritocracy (merit, from Latin mereō, and -cracy, from Ancient Greek κράτος kratos 'strength, power') is the notion of a political system in which economic goods or political power are vested in individual people based on ability and talent, rather than wealth or social class. [1]
Solon introduced the ideas of timokratia as a graded oligarchy in his Solonian Constitution for Athens in the early 6th century BC. His was the first known deliberately implemented form of timocracy, allocating political rights and economic responsibility depending on membership of one of four tiers of the population.
It includes some forms of monarchy and all forms of dictatorship, while it is contrasted with democracy and feudalism. Various definitions of autocracy exist. They may restrict autocracy to cases where power is held by a single individual, or they may define autocracy in a way that includes a group of rulers who wield absolute power.
oligarchy: government by the few; timocracy: government by the honored or valued; tyranny: government by one for himself; aristocracy: government by the best (Plato's ideal form of government) Plato found flaws with all existing forms of government and thus concluded that aristocracy, which emphasizes virtue and wisdom, is the purest form of ...