The most interesting discussion is how ancient oligarchs used information to preserve their regime. Reading Simonton’s account, it is hard not to think about how the fragmentation of our media platforms is a modern instantiation of dividing the public sphere, or how employees and workers are sometimes chilled from speaking out. They also tried to keep ordinary people dependent on individual oligarchs for their economic survival, similar to how mob bosses in the movies have paternalistic relationships in their neighborhoods. They would expel people from town squares: a diffuse population in the countryside would be unable to protest and overthrow government as effectively as a concentrated group in the city. In addition, oligarchs controlled public spaces and livelihoods to prevent the people from organizing. These collaborators legitimized the regime and gave oligarchs beachheads into the people. They gave rewards to informants and found pliable citizens to take positions in the government. Oligarchs in ancient Greece thus used a combination of coercion and co-optation to keep democracy at bay. While the ruling class must remain united for an oligarchy to remain in power, the people must also be divided so they cannot overthrow their oppressors. The ruling class must remain united for an oligarchy to remain in power Unity might come from personal relationships, trust, voting practices, or – as is more likely in today’s meritocratic era – homogeneity in culture and values from running in the same limited circles. But his key insight is that elites in power need solidarity if they are to stay in power. Among other things, they passed sumptuary laws, preventing extravagant displays of their wealth that might spark jealousy, and they used the secret ballot and consensus building practices to ensure that decisions didn’t lead to greater conflict within their cadre.Īppropriately for a scholar of the classics, Simonton focuses on these specific ancient practices in detail. To prevent this occurrence, ancient Greek elites developed institutions and practices to keep themselves united. One of the primary threats to oligarchy was that the oligarchs would become divided, and that one from their number would defect, take leadership of the people, and overthrow the oligarchy. In his fascinating and insightful book Classical Greek Oligarchy, Matthew Simonton takes us back to the ancient world, where the term oligarchy was coined. Oligarchy works, in a word, because of institutions. ![]() The question was a good one, and while I had my own explanations, I didn’t have a systematic answer.
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