Oligarchic theory starts from the notion that minority power assumes different forms, and that the basis of that power matters for understanding the exaggerated influence small numbers of people have over much larger groups or communities. That oligarchs are few in number is only incidental. Those who govern societies or dominate complex organizations are always few in number – a general point argued convincingly by Mosca and especially Michels. However, oligarchs are something much more specific. It is the extreme concentration of wealth, a power resource, which defines oligarchs and makes them worthy of study as a special class of social actors. This is what Michels failed to emphasize in his misnamed “iron law of oligarchy,” which is more accurately a law of elitism. The antidote to elitism is wider and more substantive participation by members of a community.

Perhaps nothing underscores the fundamental difference between elitism and oligarchy better than the fact that expanded and meaningful participation has no necessary or deep impact on oligarchy. Oligarchs feared what the emergence of democracy and then universal suffrage would portend, but history proved the fears to be exaggerated. The reason is that participation by itself strikes at the heart of elitism, but poses only a potential threat to oligarchs and the distinct basis of their power. It is only when participation challenges material stratification specifically – when extreme wealth held by oligarchs is dispersed as a democratic outcome – that oligarchy and participatory democracy finally clash.