Civil oligarchies differ from the other forms examined in this study in four fundamental ways. In a civil oligarchy, all oligarchs are fully disarmed, the coercion that defends oligarchic fortunes is provided exclusively by an armed state, a civil oligarchy is the only type in which no oligarchs rule (if they hold office, it is never as or for oligarchs), and the coercive state defending property for oligarchs is governed impersonally through bureaucratic institutions. This combination of factors has several important implications. One is that in civil oligarchies, strong and impersonal systems of law dominate oligarchs rather than oligarchs dominating (or being) the law. This, in turn, changes the character of property ownership from being claims enforced by oligarchs to being rights enforced by the state.

These two shifts – oligarchs submitting to laws in exchange for states guaranteeing property rights – occurred in tandem over centuries and, together, constitute the single most important transformation in the history of oligarchy. Finally, although oligarchs are relieved of the violence and political burdens of defending property themselves, the emergence of a state apparatus that takes on these roles raises novel threats to oligarchs in the form of taxation and possibly redistribution focused on incomes. In civil oligarchies where existing property and fortunes are secure – no matter the scale of wealth or the degree of stratification within a given society – oligarchs for the first time devote virtually all of their material power resources to the political challenges of income defense.