oligarchy

Noun

Meaning

A form of government in which the supreme power is placed in the hands of a few persons; also, those who form the ruling few.

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Examples

Democracy is premised, in some measure, on majority rule, and democracy is difficult in a situation of concentrated inequalities in which a large, impoverished majority confronts a small, wealthy oligarchy. Samuel P. Huntington

The second corruption of the state is oligarchy (oligos = few), in which the military elite is narrowed down to a few ruling families of immense wealth and prestige, who now openly flaunt their wealth and possessions. Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

We've become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy. And I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I've ever seen in my life. Jimmy Carter

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy. Montesquieu

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around. G. K. Chesterton

We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels. Henry A. Wallace

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