Oligarchy

Jimmy Carter has commented that the USA is more an “oligarchy than a democracy”.^[1]

Examples

Page name	Description
Iron law of oligarchy	The theory that all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies.
US	The United States is the single biggest military spender in the world, with a higher 2020 expenditure than the next ten countries combined. Its infrastructure has been described to be in disrepair since the late 1980s.

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Thomas Jefferson	“To consider the 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. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.”	Thomas Jefferson	1820
Michael Parenti	“Every ruling class has wanted only this: all the rewards and none of the burdens. The operational code is: we have a lot; we can get more; we want it all.”	Michael Parenti

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