Oligarchy Quotes

• To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Judging, Political

  Thomas Jefferson “Selected letters of Thomas Jefferson”, Lulu.com

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• The real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a democracy.

  Aristotle

  Real, Men, Differences

  Aristotle, (2014). “Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation”, p.2031, Princeton University Press

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• An oligarchy of private capital cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society because under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information.

  Albert Einstein

  Political, Information, Source

  Albert Einstein (2016). “The Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism, The Theory of Relativity, and The World As I See It”, p.11, Open Road Media

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• When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny.

  John Adams

  Hands, Political, Citizens

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• A democracy exists whenever those who are free and are not well-off, being in the majority, are in sovereign control of government, an oligarchy when control lies with the rich and better-born, these being few.

  Aristotle

  Lying, Government, Political

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• Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.

  Aristotle

  People, Democracy, Excess

  'Politics' bk. 1, sect. 4, 1296a

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• Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos.

  Polybius

  Historical, Democracy, Aristocracy

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• Capitalism creates a huge community of producers who are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor, and an oligarchy that cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized society....the subjugation is not by force but because the privileged class has long ago established a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

  Albert Einstein

  Long Ago, Class, People

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• This is what oligarchy looks like: Today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. The top one-hundredth of 1 percent makes more than 40 percent of all campaign contributions. The billionaire class owns the political system and reaps the benefits from it.

  Bernie Sanders

  Class, Political, Campaigns

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• A democracy when put to the strain grows weak, and is supplanted by Oligarchy.

  Aristotle

  Democracy, Weak, Grows

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• Are we prepared to take on the enormous political power of the billionaire class or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy?

  Bernie Sanders

  Class, Political, Slides

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• Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy.

  Che Guevara

  Democracy, Financial, Compatible

  Ernesto Che Guevara (2013). “The Awakening of Latin America: A Classic Anthology of Che Guevara's Writing on Latin America”, p.256, Ocean Press

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• More striking still, it appeared that, if the process of concentration goes on at the same rate, at the end of another century we shall have all American industry controlled by a dozen corporations and run by perhaps a hundred men. Put plainly, we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Running, Men, Goes On

  Commonwealth Club Address, delivered 23 Sept 1932, San Francisco, CA

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• To bring about government by oligarchy, masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our Federal government. . . The individual sovereignty of our states must first be destroyed.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Government, Democracy, Liberty

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• All systems are oligarchy. There is no other.

  Tom Metzger

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• Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.

  Aristotle

  Philosophical, Tyrants, People

  Aristotle (1971). “On Man in the Universe”

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• In the Soviet Union, government controls industry. In the United States, industry controls government. That is the principal structural difference between the two great oligarchies of our time.

  Edward Abbey

  Government, Two, Differences

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.19, RosettaBooks

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• Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government . . . can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppresive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people.

  George Washington

  Rights, Government, Long

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• The real power in America is held by a fast-emerging new Oligarchy of pimps and preachers who see no need for Democracy or fairness or even trees, except maybe the ones in their own yards, and they don't mind admitting it.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Real, America, Tree

  Hunter S. Thompson (2011). “Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the F”, p.21, Simon and Schuster

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• The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Wisdom, Democracy, Apathy

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• All modes of government are failures. Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has been found out. I must say that it was high time, for all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.

  Oscar Wilde

  Mean, Exercise, Government

  "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1891)

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• The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.

  Michael Lind

  Pain, Believe, Sight

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• We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels.

  Henry A. Wallace

  Government, Cartels, Form

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• Our authorities leave us no doubt that the trust lodged with the oligarchy was sometimes abused, but it certainly ought not to be regarded as a mere usurpation or engine of tyranny.

  Henry James Sumner Maine

  Trust, Doubt, Sometimes

  Henry Sumner Maine, Sir, J. H. Morgan (2000). “Ancient Law”, p.7, Beard Books

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• Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.

  Chris Hayes

  Meritocracy

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