"David R.Birch" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:

This is the definition of a "select" group of people, in this case by
Britannica:

"Aristotle used the term oligarchia to designate the rule of the few when
it was exercised not by the best but by bad men unjustly. In this sense,
oligarchy is a debased form of aristocracy, which denotes government by
the few in which power is vested in the best individuals. Most classic
oligarchies have resulted when governing elites were recruited
exclusively from a ruling caste -- a hereditary social grouping that is
set apart from the rest of society by religion, kinship, economic status,
prestige, or even language. Such elites tend to exercise power in the
interests of their own class..."

We may have a republic or representative democracy in theory, but the
above definition sounds a lot like what we have now in practice.

David

You may be interested in Michels' "Iron Law of Oligarchy." It's a debate
that's raged in political science for a century. In fact, it goes back to
the ancient Greeks. But the current thinking is that these terms make sense
only in terms of organization, not in terms of results. If you fall into the
latter, everything turns to soup.

So it's a distinction that only makes sense if you confine it to structures
of government -- to the sources of power, and to the presence of formal
rules for exclusion. The US has no such formal rules. What we *do* have is
the same human habits, and the same tendencies of wealth to perpetuate its
own power, that have existed everywhere, for all time.

Some people would argue that we're approaching a corporatist state. That
requires a new definition of "corporatist," because it has a somewhat
different meaning in classical political thought. But most people know
what's meant by the term as it's used today. And, FWIW, I agree with them,
and with you.

--
Ed Huntress