PHILOSOPHICAL EGGS

Joseph Keppler, The Bosses of the Senate (1889)

Recently my post-breakfast experience included yet another piece of news that created cognitive dissonance. This time it was from NPR and read:

“As part of the settlement agreement, the U.S. is “forever barred and precluded” from examining or prosecuting President Trump, his sons and the Trump organization’s current tax issues, according to a document posted to the DOJ website.As part of the settlement agreement, the U.S. is “forever barred and precluded” from examining or prosecuting President Trump, his sons and the Trump organization’s current tax issues, according to a document posted to the DOJ website.”

There have been literally hundreds of headlines akin to this over the past decade that just seemed, given my background beliefs about human decency, checks and balances, and an imperfect but present rule of law in the United States, to make no sense. Here and there I have been pleased to see, as I was when the courts struck down the “Travel Ban” (Executive Order 13769) Trump issued on 1/27/2017, that my country still made some sense. But for the most part I live with ongoing cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance can, of course, be a good thing insofar as the contradictory mental friction it causes is a powerful impetus to find set of beliefs and practices that are consistent. In this case, I’ve found that accepting we live in an oligarchy has brought the resolution I was seeking which, in turn, has opened me up to solutions I might have otherwise missed. Bernie Sanders, in his book Fight Oligarchy, offers a nice definition of oligarchy: “Oligarchy is a system in which a small number of extremely wealthy individuals control the economic, political, and media life of a nation. It is a system in which ordinary people have very little power to determine the future of their country. If you’re an American, it is the system in which you’re living. That must change. In the wealthiest nation on earth we must build a political movement that creates a government that represents all Americans, not just a handful of billionaires.”

Accepting the U.S. is an oligarchy took a while for sure. The thought was planted in my mind back in 1992 when I read Aristotle’s discussion of oligarchy in his Politics and made plenty of connections with our government, Peter L.P. Simpson expresses thee connections beautifully in his short book Aristotle’s Regime of the Americans which poses as a critique of American culture and politics by Aristotle himself. Consider these passages:

“These then are the chief offices in the regime of the Americans, which, as we said, they call a democracy. That it has nevertheless many oligarchic features, with some of these deviating to extreme oligarchy, is clear. But they think this to be a noble thing and even a way of preserving the democracy. For the regime is democratic in two ways in particular, in the electing of the monarchs and senates and assemblies by all the populace, and also in their way of life. For pretty well every American lives as he likes or, as Euripides says, “with a view to what he craves.” So, since living as they like requires abundance of resources, they spend their lives in getting money, and they especially admire those who have been successful in business and have invented new devices for everywhere acquiring wealth. As even one of their monarchs once said, “the business of America is business.”

“So great indeed is their love of making money that they both put political office up for sale (for no one can get elected to office who does not have much money himself, or rich friends, or belongs to one of the political clubs), and use it as a source of income. For all office-holders receive wages for being in office, and holding office enables them to make money in many ways, as especially in receiving gifts from those of the rich who want political favors to be handed out to them. Further these office-holders have control of large public funds from taxes which they guard and hand out to their friends and followers among the populace. The result is that everything is in perpetual flux, monetarily speaking, both up and down: private funds coming from friends and populace to office-holders and public funds going from office-holders to friends and populace.”

“Now it is a base thing that in the regime of the American they allow the rich and those from the political clubs to occupy all the offices at once. But it is baser still to allow people from one and the same political club to occupy them all at once (as does happen if one club is more influential than the rest). For these are both deviations toward oligarchy, and the latter especially so. The separation of powers, in fact, must be deemed an oligarchic sophistry of the rich wanting to keep the regime to themselves. For while they impress upon the populace that this separation of powers is needed to prevent any office-holder becoming too powerful and setting up a tyranny, they hide the fact that all these offices are together in the hands of themselves and their friends. A remedy for this would be to divide the offices, not only from each other, but also among the different parts in the city, so that those who are not rich nor members of the clubs also take part in them. For the Americans already adopt this arrangement in their courts where they require the populace always to take part. They should do the same in the other offices as well, as for instance in their monarchies, since these could be occupied by many together ruling jointly instead of by one man. For where all are similar and equal, justice requires, not that some always rule and others never, but that all take turns in ruling and being ruled. As things stand now, however, the offices are all in the control of the rich and the poor are excluded.” (8-9, 13)

For many years I resisted Aristotle’s observations. But I began to change my mind when I came across Simpson’s own Aristotelian analysis in his book Political Illiberalism. He makes the following claims about the U.S. which he thinks demonstrate it is an oligarchy:

1) “The first fact is that elections for office must inevitably favor the privileged few. Elections are won by number of votes cast in one’s favor and no one can receive many votes who is not known and admired by many. The features that attract attention and give renown are wealth, high social class, prominent family, conspicuous achievement, striking physical beauty, and the like.” (32)

2) “A second fact is that the more numerous the voters the fewer will be the notables who are likely to win any great number of votes.” (32).

3) “A third and closely related fact is that election campaigns are expensive and require leisure from necessities so that one may spend all or most of one’s time seeking votes. Only the wealthy and privileged or those supported and maintained by the wealthy and privileged can afford either the money or the time. The middle class and the mass of the poor can afford neither.” (32)

4) “A fourth fact is that elections are never just a matter of casting votes for whomever one wills, for there is also the advance selection of candidates. When it comes time for the people to choose their representatives, the existing representatives along with their friends and paid retainers (the political parties and their agents) have already determined the candidates for whom alone the people may vote.” (32)

He continues: 

“Such facts have become true of politics in the United States because of the United States Constitution. They did not and could not become true of it under the Articles of Confederation. Such facts also prove the United States to be an oligarchy as can be seen from the following list of oligarchic features, all of which can be seen to apply to the US:

1) All the offices are chosen from some, namely the rich and privileged and their protégés.

2) These some are always the rulers (as a class if not as individuals) while the poor and unprivileged are always ruled.

3) No offices are chosen by lot.

4) High property qualifications are, de facto [in fact] if not de jure [by law], required for office.

5) The same individuals, by being repeatedly reelected, occupy the same office often or always.

6) All the offices are of long duration (none last only a year).

7) The same class or their protégés also become the judges and lawyers and decide questions of law, even controlling, to a large extent, the composition of juries; certainly this class and the elected officials control the most important cases, as those to do with the giving of accounts and with the regime and private contracts.

8) There is no popular assembly and the people as such control nothing.

Not all these features were necessarily realized at once (as in particular the choosing of Senators which, as already noted, has only been by popular election since 1913). But the chief oligarchic features were there from the beginning….We call it representative democracy, as remarked before. Indeed we pride ourselves on the discovery of representation, holding it to be something of which the ancients were ignorant. But Aristotle knew of it. He refrained, however, from calling it either representation or democracy. He called it, as just indicated, demagogic oligarchy. Our term of representative democracy, and our praise of it as a way to extend democracy to vastly greater numbers of people than ancient democracies ever conceived of, he would call oligarchic sophistry. It is a trick to make people believe they share rule when in fact they do not. We should, then, according to Aristotle, pride ourselves, if pride be the right word, not on discovering universal democracy but on discovering universal sophistry.” (34)

Bernhard Gillam, Protectors of our Industries (1883)

And I’ve come across plenty of other accounts that add particular details to Simpson’s general critique. For example, David M. Driesen, in his 2024 SMU Law Review Forum article “Donald Trump and the Collapse of Checks and Balances,” concludes “Checks and balances, while not yet completely gone, have collapsed to a significant degree. President Trump and his supporters have plans to erode them further. All of this conforms to the patterns seen in other societies where an autocratic leader gets elected and then impairs or destroys a functioning democracy with the aid of his political party and a captured Court.” Erwin Chemerinsky and Lisa Tucker, in their 2026 article “When the Guardrails Fail: Trump’s Assault on Checks and Balances,” argue that Trump’s second term has included unprecedented efforts to expand executive power, often disregarding statutory limits, restructuring federal agencies, and firing officials in violation of federal law. He has repeatedly ignored congressional spending mandates, used emergency powers without legal basis, and weaponized executive authority against law firms, government officials, and institutions. They conclude “The first year of this [second] Trump presidency has seen an unprecedented effort to increase executive power and undermine checks and balances. It is too soon to know if the guardrails of democracy will hold, but the axiom of systemic fragility would predict that the president’s overreach into the workings of these closely connected institutions may well bring about the death of the rule of law.” And a 2014 study done by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page (from Princeton and Northwestern respectively) demonstrates that, after analyzing 1,779 policy decisions, the people of the United States have only 5% influence on the decisions of Congress whereas interest groups have 24%, business groups have 43%, and the wealthy (top 10%) an astonishing 78%:

If we had a democracy then we should be represented by the table in the upper left:

And this study was published in 2014. Since then we have witnessed more troubling facts like Elon Musk, who momentarily reached trillionaire status in June 2026, owning more wealth than at least half the American households combined, the top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 93%, and the CEOs of large corporations making some 350 times more than their average employees. As Sanders points out in an op-ed, today we have more income and wealth inequality, more concentration of ownership, more corporate control of the media, and more billionaire money buying elections than ever before.

As the above political cartoons from the late 1800s show, concerns about oligarchy in America are not knew. And, just like other forms of government, oligarchies can be quite varied and we are not necessarily living under the most pernicious form. As the above study shows, there are some policies affected by the will of the people. In light of this minor influence we could, as Sanders himself does, say we live in a “semi-democracy” or something like that. But I’m getting tired of these phrases which increasingly sound like, to use Simpson’s imagined Aristotelean response, oligarchic sophistry. I think it is wiser to accept that we are indeed in an oligarchy so that we can stop feeling the cognitive dissonance which wastes our energy, make us frustrated, and lands us in efforts to solve problems that in many cases can’t be solved based on the assumptions we keep making. As we all know, we need to have an accurate diagnosis if we hope to receive a successful treatment. Accepting we live in an oligarchy can be the first step to more fruitful ways of thinking and acting about our dying democracy. Indeed, every time I get hit with some troubling news or personal experience of injustice I simply say

this is what we would expect in an oligarchy

and my dissonance often vanishes and I’m usually able to shift to new perspectives that reveal oligarchic machinations I might have missed.

But what are we to do once we see things from these new and quite alarming perspectives? Well, first and foremost it is important to carefully describe and verify what we are seeing lest those who would defend the status quo cry conspiracy theory. And then we have to come up with action points for change and do something. Unfortunately, most of us are busy doing plenty of other things just to make ends meet (which we would expect in an oligarchy where most people are anxious, overworked, exhausted, and so on). So it can be difficult to do everything we need to do. Luckily, we can gain help from Sanders’ Fighting Oligarchy which is a short, cheap, and readable book that offers plenty of facts, verifications, and the following action points which are given helpful exposition with practical directions on pp. 119-131:

1) Defend and expand democracy by, in part, overturning the Citizens United ruling (the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that reversed campaign finance restrictions and allowed corporations and interest groups to spend unlimited money on elections) and enacting a constitutional amendment to ban unlimited corporate contributions in elections.

2) Raise new revenue by making the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

3) Cut military spending and invest in public needs such as affordable housing, public education, and infrastructure projects.

4) Make certain that the working class benefits from new technology, especially AI and robotics.

5) Guarantee basic human needs such as health care, education, nutrition, housing, and retirement security all of which should be human rights,

6) Enact medicare for all.

7) Provide quality education for all.

8) Make housing affordable.

9) Improve wages and benefits for American workers.

10) Pass the PRO act (The Protecting the Right to Organize Act).

11) Raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage (from the appalling $7.25 which has remained the same for 16 years and counting to at least $17).

12) Guarantee paid medical and family leave.

13) Expand social security.

14) Bring back defined benefit pensions.

15) Encourage employee ownership.

As we all know, oligarchy thrives on people feeling so frustrated, tired, and hopeless that they do little or nothing to change their condition. It also thrives on people thinking they have very little in common with each other so they fight amongst the themselves rather than against their true oppressors. But one thing which is clear in an oligarchy is that the people, regardless of what divides them, are necessarily united in their shared unjust oppression. And given the diversity of the above action points there is room for all of us to make a difference. Given the widespread oligarchic powers it is foolish to be optimistic about the prospects of reform. But given the positive reforms in U.S. history it is equally foolish to be pessimistic. I think the facts demand we should be meliorists who admit that positive change, while not guaranteed, is possible if we work hard together. We may indeed fail to preserve and enhance what democracy we have left. But we will almost certainly fail if collective action isn’t taken. I will let Senator Sanders’ close with his diagnosis and inspiring call to action (see below for further reading and resources):

Go here for the fighting Oligarchy Tour website with plenty of videos, information, and ways to engage for change.

Go here for an Oxfam report on oligarchy with opportunities to help.

Go here for my two-post series on reducing polarization and demonization in our country.

Go here for my post on David Bohm’s insights about cultivating dialogue between defensive people.

Go here for my post on Mill’s worst polemical offense and the 2016 election.

Go here for my thoughts on Trump and alternative facts.

Go here for my post on truth and fake news.

Go here for my series on natural law and social justice.

Go here for my four part blog series on reducing the costs of tragic conflict.

Go here for more insights about fallibility and dialogue.

Go here for my post on how the experience of tragedy can help facilitate dialogical communities.

Go here for my post on two forms of political wisdom in Plato.