Michael Arnheim - Two Models of Government

All societies past and present can be classified either as monocracies (including all regimes where power is concentrated in the hands of a single individual) or oligocracies (embracing all forms of minority rule).

Vaunted democracies are in reality either oligocracies or monocracies.

The present-day democracies of Britain and the United States are in reality composite oligocracies made up of several disparate elements.

Oligocracies are by definition regimes with a high degree of inequality, but with variable levels of liberty.

Oligocracy and inequality are the default features of human society.

Equality is unattainable except by a radical monocracy like Fidel Castros Cuba, and then only with difficulty and at the expense of liberty and probably of lives as well.

Equality of opportunity must not be equated with equality.

Equality of opportunity means an equal opportunity to become unequal.

Paradoxically, however, for genuine equality of opportunity to exist there has to be equality which is practically unattainable.

For genuine freedom of expression to exist there also needs to be equality, because the little man standing on his soap-box and shouting his lungs out at Speakers Corner in Londons Hyde Park cannot compete with the media moguls which is why genuine freedom of expression is rare.

Once these truths are recognised, it becomes clear that for one state to attempt regime change in a foreign country is likely to be futile.

Monocracy (from the Greek, meaning the power of one person or the rule of one person see Glossary) includes all governments where power is concentrated in the hands of a single individual. It is therefore both narrower and wider than the conventional term monarchy, because it excludes constitutional monarchies such as are found in present-day Scandinavia, Spain, Belgium and the United Kingdom, but it includes regimes such as those of Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong), Fidel Castro in Cuba, Francisco Franco in Spain and Adolf Hitler, together with monarchs such as (some of) the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, the Roman Emperors from Augustus to Diocletian, France under Louis XIV and Frederick the Greats Prussia, together with the present-day rulers of Liechtenstein, Swaziland and Saudi Arabia. Most controversially, it also covers vaunted democratic regimes such as that of Athens in the 5th century BCE. Monocracy covers leaders who have come to power by birth, election, coup dtat or in any other way.

Oligocracy (from the Greek meaning the power of the few, or the rule of the few see Glossary) combines aristocracy and oligarchy, and refers therefore to any regime where power is concentrated in the hands of an elite or a minority or more than one elite or minority sharing power whether based on birth, wealth, ethnicity, language, colour, religion or anything else, and whether elected or unelected, and whether their power is formal or informal. Whats wrong, you may ask, with just sticking to aristocracy and oligarchy? Two things. First, it is often hard to decide whether a particular regime is an aristocracy or an oligarchy. Both denote government by a minority, the chief difference being that aristocracy is rule by a hereditary minority while oligarchy refers to minority rule regardless of whether it is hereditary or not. Classical Sparta and the Roman Republic are two examples of regimes that may be labelled as either an aristocracy or an oligarchy. The second reason for inventing a new blanket term for minority government is that, besides referring to a form of government, aristocracy can also refer to a privileged and usually titled class of people who may not have any political power at all like the titled aristocracy in modern Britain, who since 1999 have not been automatically entitled to a seat in the House of Lords and some of whom are not involved in government in any other way either. Oligocracies include classical Sparta and the Roman Republic, as already mentioned, together with such societies as medieval Western Europe, the Venetian Republic from 1268 to 1797 and Japan from 1185 to 1868, as well as modern democracies such as the United Kingdom and the United States, in which power is in the hands of a composite oligocracy made up of several disparate elements.