Political Parties

It was translated to Italian as Sociologia del partito politico nella democrazia moderna: studi sulle tendenze oligarchiche degli aggregati politici by Alfredo Polledro in 1912, and then translated from the Italian to English by Eden Paul and Cedar Paul for Hearst's International Library Co. in 1915.

This work analyses the power structures of organizations such as political parties and trade unions. Michels's main argument is that all organizations, even those in theory most egalitarian and most committed to democracy – like socialist political parties – are in fact oligarchical, and dominated by a small group of leadership.

The book also provides a first systematic analysis of how a radical political party loses its radical goals under the dynamics of electoral participation. The origins of moderation theory can be found in this analysis.

Synopsis

Michels put forward a thesis about incompatibility of democracy and large-scale social organizations. He observed that contrary to democratic and egalitarian principles, both society in general, and specific organizations in particular are dominated by the leadership – the oligarchy. This, according to Michels, was not because of any particular weakness of a particular society or organization in question, but a characteristic of any and all complex social systems. Such social systems have to be organized along bureaucratic lines, managed by departments staffed with non-elected officials, and bureaucracies inevitably develop oligarchies. Michels concluded that in any complex organization, and such dominate the modern world, it is impossible to escape domination of oligarchy – a conclusion which became known as the iron law of oligarchy.

"Who says organization, says oligarchy"

The iron law of oligarchy is based on the following logic. First, any large scale organization will necessitate the development of bureaucracy for efficient administration. Such leaders will amass resources (superior knowledge control over the formal means of communication with the membership, and the skill in the art of politics) giving them power at the expense of rank and file members.

"Large-scale organizations give their officers a near monopoly of power"

Second, Michels expressed doubts about whether the rank and file possess the skills necessary to compete with the leaders, a concept he phrased as the "incompetence of the masses". In order to prevent the development of an oligarchy, the regular members must be involved in various activities of the organizations; however, reality of time constraints due to work, family and leisure will reduce the amount of time that most such members are willing to dedicate to active involvement in organizational activities and politics. This is compounded by the rank and file lack of education, and corresponding sophistication of the leadership.

"The masses are incapable of taking part in the decision-making process and desire strong leadership."

In his case study of his contemporary socialist parties, primarily the German Social Democratic Party. It was a radical organization in his time, fighting for novel concepts such as adult suffrage, free speech, and popular participation in the government. Michels described how their political program was overshadowed by the expansion of the organization favoured by the administrative bureaucracy. This, Michels observed, can be explained thus: "it is far from obvious that the interests of the masses which have combined to form the party will coincide with the interests of the bureaucracy in which the party becomes personified." Michels noted that if an organization dedicated to such principles failed to realize its democratic ideals in its own governance, it is unlikely that other organizations, even less concerned with such lofty goals, would be able to function as democracies.

"The socialists might conquer, but not socialism, which would perish in the moment of its adherents' triumph"