The Iron Law of Oligarchy and Republicanism Part 1

    I was reading a political discussion a few days ago when a commenter posted a link to the Wikipedia page for something called the "Iron Law of Oligarchy". I had never heard about this before so I read into it and the first paragraph of the article states 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 organization"

     The article goes on to state that:

"all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies"

and

"since no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy, power within an organization will always get delegated to individuals within that group, elected or otherwise."

    I developed a similar thought to this a few years ago. I came to the conclusion that democracy can not work at a national level, especially in a country as large as the United States, and thus it should not exist beyond the city-level. I guess it goes with the saying the people should care more about local elections than national as they have a more direct effect on their lives.

    The article includes the line:

"Michels stated that the official goal of representative democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that representative democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, which he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable."

    I had a similar thought that mirrored this, that democracy was little more than a way to get people to consent to oligarchy. The fact that political dynasties can exist in a democracy is proof of this, ranging from the Clinton and Bush families of today all the way back to the Washington and Adams families at America's founding in the 18th century.