Sundays at 2:00-3:30pm ET starting November 30
Register for the course by clicking HERE, and then hitting “Ask to join group.” A Gmail account or an email address connected to a Google account is recommended. (You may need to be logged in to a Google-associated email to register.)
“The history of all hitherto existing societies,” Marx once wrote, “is the history of class struggle.” What if the central political form of our time is not democracy — the rule of the majority of people — but oligarchy — the rule of the few? This course examines the idea and structure of oligarchic power in theory, in history, and in contemporary practice. We’ll read political theorists and social scientists who have analyzed how wealth, status, and institutional control concentrate in the hands of a small elite even within ostensibly democratic societies. Core readings include Michael Parenti’s Democracy for the Few, G. William Domhoff’s Who Rules America?, and a selection of historical documents. We will trace how “national” concerns are invoked to justify decisions that primarily benefit dominant classes and will ask whether oligarchy today operates more through persuasion than coercion. We will also compare classical notions of aristocracy and plutocracy to modern networks of corporate, bureaucratic, and intelligence power.
Readings will be made freely available to participants.
1. Definition, History, Recent Argument:
- Winters, “Oligarchy” (2015)
- Gilens and Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” (2014)
- Michael Parenti, Democracy for the Few, chapter 2: “A Constitution for the Few” (2010)
- Optional: Urbinati, “Oligarchy” (2010)
- Optional: Winters, “Oligarchy in the United States” (2009)
2. Who Rules America? Part I:
- William Domhoff, Who Rules America? (1967):
- Introduction
- Chapter One: The American Upper Class
- Chapter Two: The Control of the Corporate Economy
3. Who Rules America? Part II:
- William Domhoff, Who Rules America? (1967):
- Chapter Three: The Shaping of the American Polity
- Chapter Four: The Control of the Federal Government
- Chapter Five: The Military, the CIA, and the FBI
4. Who Rules America? Part III:
- William Domhoff, Who Rules America? (1967):
- Chapter Six: Control of State and Local Governments
- Chapter Seven: Is the American Upper Class a Governing Class?
5. Strategies: Centrism, Controlled Opposition, Divide and Conquer:
- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “Not Right, Not Left, But a Vital Center” (1948)
- Thomas W. Braden, “I’m Glad the CIA is ‘Immoral’” (1967)
- Sol Stern, “A Short Account of International Student Politics and the Cold War with Particular Reference to the NSA, CIA, etc.” (1967)
- CIA White Paper, “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” (1944)
- CIA White Paper, “France: The Defection of the Intellectuals” (1985)
- Optional: Christian Parenti, “Diversity is a Ruling Class Ideology” (2023)
- Optional: “What is the Function of Making Socialism Woke?” (2025)
Optional / Recommended:
- Paul Sweezy, “The American Ruling Class” (1951)
- C.W. Mills, “The Structure of Power in American Society” (1957)
- D.E. Baltzell, “Social Mobility and Fertility within an Elite Group” (1953)
- D.E. Baltzell, “Reflections on Aristocracy” (1968)
- D.E. Baltzell, “The Protestant Establishment Revisited” (1976)