hancy and corruption.
Famous Oligarchies of history have included Sparta, the Roman Republic, the Venetian Republic and the British Empire. Plato viewed Oligarchy as “a constitution teeming with many ills”. One of these he identified as greed. He saw the ruling passion of Oligarchs as the accumulation and preservation of wealth. The transition to Oligarchy from other forms of rule is marked by the amassing of great private fortunes. Trends towards growing income inequality have been marked in the world especially over the last ten years. According to a report by Oxfam last year the world’s eight richest people have the same as the poorest 50%.
Much of the wealth, though, is hidden in our society. We can clearly see the influence of the Walton family and the Koch Brothers. Through political donations they openly seek to have laws passed in their favour. However, both the giant banking families, like the Rockefellers, and the remnants of the aristocracy are also owners of vast undisclosed wealth. Even companies like Forbes, that put these rich lists together, admit that the amounts used are on the low side. The admiration of the rich and worship of money becomes the essential heart of an Oligarchic society.
Of course Oligarchs are happy to rule and get along when the going is good. The Bilderberg meetings, exposed by the intrepid reporting of Daniel Estulin and Jim Tucker, are yearly gatherings where the wealthy elite meet to discuss an agenda of important topics in global finance and politics. Papers that have been subsequently released reveal discussions and resolutions for action way in advance of events. Bilderberg attendee Etienne Davignon admitted that the group was instrumental in setting up the Euro currency. In 2002 a discussion was held at the Bilderberg meeting to invade Iraq. In an article from 2008 the Bilderbergers discuss the global financial melt-down and rescue measures back in 2006. These, once secret, meetings clearly indicate an Oligarchical tendency.
In Russia today we can clearly see an Oligarchy, represented at their head by Putin. They are an entrenched ruling class that have evolved from the nomenklatura, or Communist bureaucrats, of the Soviet Union. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR, Western business had hoped to enter Russia to steal and plunder her resources. However, they found that the Russians had already organised themselves into an Oligarchy capable of plundering their own nation’s wealth. The same process can be identified in China where previous state-owned enterprises, under the guiding hand of the old Communist ruling class, are transferred into the ownership of the new post-Communist ruling class. Who just happen to be the same people!
In ancient China Confucius stood up against Oligarchy. One of the main problems China faced in his time was the constant warfare driven by the private needs of the Chou dynasty. Confucius regarded many of the nobility as useless parasites and idlers. He promoted the ideas of education on the basis of ability and a government filled with advisers (to the leader) who served not feudal loyalty but answered to higher moral principles. Confucius stood in opposition to entrenched privilege, which Oligarchy maintains, and was opposed to the domination by a caste of rulers with no intrinsic merits of their own.
Machiavelli, who lived in Italy during the Renaissance period, wrote about the body politic. Drawing on his country’s history he wrote about the nobility living as he saw it on the abundant revenue derived from their estates, and called them pests in his Discourse on Livy. He was of the opinion though that class conflict between the rich few and the many have-nots was a good thing for political development. He identified five classes: feudal nobility; bankers and merchants; the middle class; poor urban mass; and the country peasant. The key was that one group’s power did not become excessive. Machiavelli believed that a healthy republic required a series of checks and balances.
The idea of a series of checks and balances 