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Few control the majority
The oligarchy or oligarchy is derived from the Greek, which is the authority of the minority, so that power is limited to a small class based on family, class, political or military sectarianism. It is a small group of people who govern a country, organization, party or company.
The oligarchy has been defined as: “the political system that exercises power for a small group of individuals, made up of the educated elite (aristocratic) or the royal minority (wealthy elite), or the military or militia clique, and often it is confused to form the ruling class. ”
Plato is considered the first political thinker to mention the oligarchy, which means oligarchy, in his book “The Republic”. Aristotle came after him, considering that the oligarchy is a transgression of the aristocracy, and always ends with the rule of tyranny and monopolization of power.
Machiavelli summarizes the term oligarchy in his book “The Converts”, that if the aristocracy is corrupted, it becomes the oligarchy. This term is used in the modern era to describe governments that do not have a mass balance, as they depend on circles of influence in power, such as finance men, the military and families. Its leadership is made up of a small group that monopolizes the tools of influence and confines it to a coherent body that controls the decision to maintain its existence and durability.
On the other hand, the dominant clique in commercial and financial companies is considered a kind of transnational and multinational oligarchy to secure interests … where most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few who control economic power in one or more countries.
The political parties of the oligarchy.
After a quick attempt to introduce the oligarchy, I will stop at the most important and in-depth study on this subject that appeared in the book “Political Parties: Oligarchic Trends in Democracy”, by Robert Mikles, an Italian socio-economist of German origin ( Cologne 1876), who died in Rome in 1936. He was one of the founders of political sociology, influenced at the beginning of his reign by Marxism and later by fascism. The book was published in 1911, and Arabized by Dr. Mounir Makhlouf, as the first edition was published in 1982, then a second edition revised in 2017 by Dar Abaad.
This book was published on the eve of the First World War, and is a sociological study of the phenomenon of political parties, which was still at that stage in its early appearance.
The writer was not satisfied with introducing the subject of the organization, but went further to study its deep socio-political causes, and immersed himself in a sociological study of the composition of political parties and their leadership role, and the arrival of a small group to take power. In it he also dealt with the affairs of the heads of parties and unions and their leaders in that period, in addition to the effects of these matters and the prisons on their behavior within the ranks of their parties, and on the decisions issued by them. .
Military and psychological sciences.
The author focused on two main factors:
First: a structural study of the organization with the adoption of the example of the state and the armies: it stopped at the similarity in the discourse taken in a large part of it, from the military sciences, including expressions related to military and strategic tactics or the barracks life, and related to all the military language. This intimate link between the party and the army and military affairs was expressed at that time by the leaders of German socialism, especially Friedrich Engels, as a theoretician of socialism and military science at the same time.
Second: Social psychology: the study seeks the role of leaders in democratic organizations, analyzing the positive technical and administrative reasons that led to the need for the emergence of partisan or union organizations or others. It also emphasizes the impossibility of a practical mechanism for direct government by the masses. The author focuses on the positive psychological causes that regulate the relationship between the leader and the public, considering that the defect begins with the mandate given to the delegate to represent a grassroots group. “The choice that was made for a specific purpose becomes a lifelong task. Therefore, the individual who has been assigned for a specific period ends up claiming that the delegation constitutes his property. Refusing to renew it … leads to confusion among the comrades.
The writer continues with the means of “imposing the authority of the leaders on the masses”, highlighting the need of the masses for the leaders, after noting the “political apathy” of the masses, where “a very simple minority” participates in party decisions. As for the most important decisions made on behalf of the party … issued by a handful of associates.
Machiavelli summarizes the oligarchy in his book “Alterhatat” that the aristocratic, if corrupted, turned to the oligarchy.
The masses do not respond extensively to invitations from unions and parties, leading to “mastery of the city masses in the organization over the dispersed rural masses … just as the great masses do not respond to invitation to meetings , unless they know beforehand that there is a famous speaker … or violent password “(Down with personal judgment) … or everything that dazzles (movies, drawings and magic lantern)» …
The author concludes that the masses “feel an urgent need for those who administer and guide them, and that people have someone to lead the way and give them the password. This need is accompanied by a true respect for the leaders who are viewed as heroes. This trait is a psychological basis for the emergence of a hegemony of capable leadership. This is evidence that the masses have “a psychological disposition to obey, a deep sense of discipline … and a critical sense dimension” This leads to “recognition of the crowd by the characters who speak and write on their behalf.” This is evidence of the worship of the masses by their leaders … »Among those who fascinate the masses are” those with talent rhetorical, who possess the aesthetic and emotional power of the word, intelligent speakers, the old fighter and the one who possesses the magic of fame, and talented workers in intellectual terms and cultural … “. With the birth of professional leadership, the difference between leaders and the masses is widening … and taking the lead of the masses.
The need for regulation
The book reviews in detail the need to organize: democracy cannot take place without regulation. Organizing is the only way to create collective will, it is a weapon of struggle against the powerful. Proletarians can acquire the capacity for political resistance and social dignity at the same time, unless they meet. But the organizing principle, which constitutes a necessity at the political level, hides other dangers, due to the impossibility of having a mechanism and a technical mechanism to govern the masses directly. Extended popular meetings Leadership generally agrees to make decisions by encouraging or voting en masse, drawing on the public enthusiasm in their favor, while leadership avoids mini-meetings to avoid criticism and accountability. Furthermore, the general conferences of the main parties are limited to an elite group that is easy to control.
In theory, the parties adopt a qualitative equality between their members: the daily worker, the most destitute and miserable, can address any famous man of thought, as if he were addressing a co-worker. But the task of the elected delegates of the masses began to get more complicated with the passing of the days, so the differences between the base and the leadership that require some individual insight and rhetorical talent, and a great amount of objective knowledge, appear. necessarily led to the formation of a category of professional supporters, specialized and experienced in managing the organization. And the holders of certificates awarded by training courses, institutes and party schools. From here, “youth schools” emerged, the aim of which is to provide organizations with employees who enjoy a part of the “scientific culture”. Since 1906, for example, a “party school” has existed in Berlin that provides specialized lessons for those who wish to be party or union employees. The salaries of the educational staff of the school are paid by the Central Fund of the Socialist Party, which is credited with its foundation. And the period of study at this school extends to a period of two years, the students who follow it, after graduation, receive a certificate of “work expert”. This measure paved the way for the rise of the labor bureaucracy and the creation of an artificial elite of workers among those who want to lead the proletarian groups, which led to an increase in the gap between the leaders and the masses.
He who says to organize says a tendency towards the oligarchy. The organization’s internal mechanism gives it a solid structure and classifies the positions of leaders and the public between a ruling minority and a governed majority.
Electoral representation
Every strong organization, be it a democratic state, a political party or a proletarian association, provides a terrain that strongly encourages the distinction between organs and functions, so that the direct domain of the public is lost from its reach and is overshadowed by the increasing power of committees. Therefore, the indirect electoral system flows into the ranks of the organization, while fighting against it in public life. The more the organization grows and grows, the more it becomes a phantom right recognized by the public. Therefore, affiliates will entrust this task to trusted individuals, who have been designated in these locations specifically for this purpose, and will become paid employees of the organization. Therefore, the role of the public diminishes to the point of being satisfied with very brief statements or resorting to ineffective formative monitoring committees.
A simple employee can succeed in raising the rank of leader, without consulting public opinion or asking for their help. Gradually, bureaucracy emerges according to the hierarchy of the administrative hierarchy, which is the result of technical needs and the basic condition for the regular functioning of the party machine.
Leaders have been found at all times, but some utopian theorists claim that socialism has no leaders, but this development runs counter to the social law that leads to stronger control of leaders. As the modern party evolved, the trend emerged to replace seasonal leaders with professional leaders, so that the fellow employee became a professional fighter, and professional leadership indicates the beginning of the end of democracy.
Theoretically, the parliamentary system in aspirations embodies the government of the masses, but when applying it we witness a fraud practiced by those in power, and the fundamental differences between democracy and monarchy fall, so instead of having a king, the people will be given a multitude of kings.
This criticism of the representative system can be complemented by this political observation, made by M. Proudhon: “The representatives of the people have managed to completely avoid popular supervision. It is a natural bond that all authority crosses. And this ends with this power that emanates from the people to rise above the heads of the people ». “When I cast my vote, my equality fell into the ballot box with the voting card,” said Louis Vieux. And they disappeared together. “
Similarly, Marx and Engels recognized the dangers arising from the representation that emerges from direct universal suffrage. This did not prevent Marxists from using the parliamentary system as a means of their work.
Prevention of anarchism
Thanks to the anarchists, they were the first to place a strong emphasis on the hierarchical and oligarchic consequences of party organizations. Anarchists have a clear vision of the errors of the organization, more than socialists and unionists. They fight power as, at least, the source of all dependency and slavery, if not all disease in the world, and that every coercion for them is “synonymous with imprisonment and the police.” The anarchists refused to form a party, since their followers were disorganized in any stable way, and did not unite them with any discipline. But anarchists recognize the need for technical leadership only for the masses, and reduce the work of leaders to just administrative staff, to eliminate all very dangerous defections for the organization.
Anarchists boasted of “direct action” to improve the destiny of the workers and liberate the proletariat from capitalism and political centralization, through the personal and immediate action of the workers themselves.
Anarchism is a movement that calls for absolute freedom, and promised the world an ideal vision for the future and a system in which all concentration of power is excluded, but did not know how to present, in his theory, the logical elements of this system.
Bakunin was against all participation of the working class in the elections. And he was already convinced that freer electoral systems could only be an illusion. “He who says authority says hegemony. Each hegemony assumes a dominant audience. “Therefore, the anarchists aimed to” destroy the state to attack the bourgeoisie, “as Brian said. In practice, however, the possibility of a classless state has been rejected, because society cannot be without a “dominant” class. According to this concept, the state would only be a minority organization. In French labor circles, there is the example: “an elected man, a bad man.” The social revolution, as the political revolution will be reduced to a process that requires, according to the Italian proverb, to change the conductor of the orchestra of the hymn while the music remains the same. .
Democracy is the least of evils.
The presence of leaders is a phenomenon inherent in all forms of social life. In practice, leaders are technically indispensable. The organization is the source from which the dominance of the electorate over the electorate, delegated to the delegates, delegates to those who delegated them. Who says the organization says the oligarchy. The idea of representing the interests of the people, the idea that the majority of Democrats cling with stubbornness and sincere trust, and in particular the broad working masses, is nothing but an illusion. The masses, by themselves, are weak in character and must be divided into action, specialization, and management. “The human race wants to be governed, and will have it. I am ashamed of my sexuality, ”M. Proudhon wrote of his prison in 1830, because an individual person is condemned to be condemned by nature.
At the end of his book, the author asks a series of questions that remain unanswered. It concludes that it is impossible to create a social system that makes possible the full realization of the concept of popular sovereignty. Therefore, he raises the “pessimistic” solution that history offers us for this problem, and asks if a true democracy is possible.
As for the means to prevent the oligarchy, history has largely revealed to us its powerlessness and inefficiency. Whenever we want to confront leaders’ dominance by law, it is the latter that ends in obedience and surrender, not leaders. Therefore, it is the responsibility of social education that the main task of raising the level of the masses falls on the objective of placing it, within the limits of the possible, against the oligarchic tendencies that threaten it.
According to the disqualification of the masses, as the writer concludes, today’s democracy is, for the ideal, a source of bitter disappointment and disappointment, and unfortunately the errors inherent in democracy are, unfortunately, even the smallest evils. The oligarchy is also the natural heir to a failed democracy, because each organization carries the seed of the oligarchy, so that the commitment becomes binding and “the leader becomes a god, godfather or dictator.”
This book is fundamental, as if it were written yesterday, it simulates the current crises and the answers to chronic questions, and helps to understand the crisis of the Arab parties in general, and the Lebanese in particular. Similarly, it exposes the illusion of establishing a true democracy and indicates that the goal of anarchism by destroying the state fosters instability, thus concluding that the oligarchy remains the only real possibility.
In short: the illusion of democracy is the best hope, and the masses will only be abstract. The urgent question that arises is: How can an ideal democracy be achieved? As for the answer, it is postponed.
“There has never been a real democracy,” says Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in “The social contract.” It will never exist. “Anarchism is also an unattainable ideal dream, so the oligarchy is the only one that prevails in different forms and styles. As for the fans of these options, they suffer from disappointment, confusion … and they are waiting.
* Lebanese writer and editor
