Robert Michels
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"In his book Political Parties, written in 1911, Robert Michels argues that most representative democracies deteriorate towards an oligarchy or particracy. This is known as the iron law of oligarchy." --Sholem Stein |
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Robert Michels (9 January 1876 in Cologne, Germany – 3 May 1936 in Rome, Italy) was a German-born Italian sociologist who wrote on the political behavior of intellectual elites and contributed to elite theory. He is best known for his book Political Parties, published in 1911, which contains a description of the "iron law of oligarchy." He was a friend and disciple of Max Weber, Werner Sombart and Achille Loria. Politically, he moved from the Social Democratic Party of Germany to the Italian Socialist Party, adhering to the Italian revolutionary syndicalist wing and later to Italian Fascism, which he saw as a more democratic form of socialism. His ideas provided the basis of moderation theory which delineates the processes through which radical political groups are incorporated into the existing political system.