The Ruling Class

Abstract

The distribution of power, like the distribution of wealth, has fascinated writers for centuries, and the history of political thought is littered with ideas for the best form of government — Plato’s Republic, Rousseau’s Social Contract, Marx’s communism. But how in the twentieth century is, or should, power be distributed?

“Democracy is inconceivable without organisation, yet he who says organisation says oligarchy” — Robert Michels in The Iron Law of Oligarchy (1911)

“Opportunity means nothing unless it includes the right to be unequal” — Margaret Thatcher (1979)