Joe Biden delivered an ominous message to Americans in his 15 January farewell address, warning that a privileged few could soon be poised to wield enormous power in the US.
Biden described a “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked”.
“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said.
While Biden’s speech prompted polarized responses from each end of the political spectrum, his comments about wealth inequality are backed by data. The richest 1% of Americans possess more wealth than the bottom 90%.
The ultra-rich have long donated to Democrats and Republicans alike – Donald Trump is not unique in enjoying support from mega-wealthy donors – but there are signs the leaders of the technology sector could hold outsize influence with him. He appointed the Tesla founder and X owner, Elon Musk, to head a new agency called Doge, the “department of government efficiency”. And tech heads who control much of the flow of information to Americans have cultivated relationships with Trump – such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
What is oligarchy? And does America count as one? We asked political science experts to explain.
What does ‘oligarchy’ mean?
In an oligarchy, “power is held by a group of people on the basis of their wealth, noble or religious status, military rank, and so forth”, said Jonathan Hanson, a political scientist and lecturer at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy. Hanson said the term is also “used to describe countries where a small group of people just have a lot of power even if they do not formally rule”.
Why did Biden suggest the US might be slipping into an oligarchic age?
“In three words/names: Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos,” Daniel Kinderman, an associate professor in comparative politics and international relations at the University of Delaware. “Biden is worried that we are heading towards a narrower and tighter concentration of political, economic, technological and media power, a new and more dangerous kind of oligarchy than what we have had in the past.”
Kinderman said that because the “online universe” can shape “what we [think we] know and how we think and what we think”, tech moguls are able to wield a particular kind of influence.
“If that power is concentrated and only on one side, or if it’s only aligned with one set of interests, we are in very serious trouble, and we may soon be there if the tech CEOs align themselves very tightly with the new Trump administration.”
Does the US have the hallmarks of an oligarchy?
Political scientists pointed to America’s dramatic wealth gap in assessing Biden’s warning that the US could become an oligarchy. “Constitutionally, the United States remains a representative democracy,” Hanson said.
But wealth is concentrated, he said. The top 1% of US households hold nearly 30% of wealth in this country – whereas the bottom 50% hold about 2.5%. And wealth can buy power. The US supreme court’s decision in Citizens United means that outside groups, and wealthy persons, can in effect dump limitless funds into US elections.
“The conjunction of enormous wealth with the ownership of social media companies, and the obvious efforts of these billionaires to curry favor with President Trump, is rightfully setting off alarm bells,” Hanson said.
Kinderman voiced similar sentiments.
“The United States is a country of very extreme inequality. When it comes to income and wealth inequality, the US has the hallmarks of an oligarchy,” he said. “Sadly, policymaking in most countries is skewed towards the elite, but this tendency is even more pronounced in the United States than in many comparable rich countries.” One analysis of wealth inequality among countries found that the US was more comparable to Africa – which, along with Latin America, was one of the two regions with highest wealth inequality – than to Europe.
What does this have to do with plutocracy?
According to Chuck Collins, director of the program on inequality and the common good at the Institute for Policy Studies: “An oligarchy is a society governed by a few. A plutocracy is a society governed by the wealthy. We have the signs of both.”
What other countries are oligarchies?
Hanson said that there are elements of oligarchy in Russia, Hungary and Iran. “In the former two countries, there is a network of ties between political leadership and wealthy business owners. These oligarchs control large parts of the economy and benefit from lucrative government contracts. In exchange, they provide support for the political leadership.”
By contrast, “in Iran, the oligarchy is formed by religious leaders”.
Do oligarchies ever transform into democracies?
“Absolutely,” Matt Simonton, a professor at Arizona State University who wrote Classical Greek Oligarchy: A Political History, said. In Athens during the late fifth century BCE, there was a short time that saw two oligarchic coups d’etat. The second oligarchy was helmed by a cohort that became known as the “Thirty Tyrants”.
“They didn’t do a good job,” Simonton said. “They ruled very briefly and [were] overthrown in a civil war.”
The Athenians gave amnesty to most of the oligarchs and subsequently returned to democracy – which was “very stable” for nearly 100 years. “It happened a lot,” Simonton said of political cycling. “They had to deal with civil war and reconciliation all the time.”
