Oligarchy

by Jeffrey A. Winters

For centuries, oligarchs were viewed as empowered by wealth, an idea muddled by elite theory early in the twentieth century. The common thread for oligarchs across history is that wealth defines them, empowers them, and inherently exposes them to threats. The existential motive of all oligarchs is wealth defense. How they respond varies with the threats they confront, including how directly involved they are in supplying the coercion underlying all property claims, and whether they act separately or collectively. These variations yield four types of oligarchy: warring, ruling, sultanistic, and civil. Oligarchy is not displaced by democracy but rather is fused with it. Moreover, the rule of law problem in many societies is a matter of taming oligarchs. Cases studied in this book include the United States, ancient Athens and Rome, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, medieval Venice and Siena, mafia commissions in the United States and Italy, feuding Appalachian families, and early chiefs cum oligarchs dating from 2300 BCE.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Philosophy

344 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 2011

About the author

Jeffrey Alan Winters is an American political scientist at Northwestern University, specialising in the study of oligarchy. He has written extensively on Indonesia and on oligarchy in the United States. His 2011 book Oligarchy was the 2012 winner of the American Political Science Association's Luebbert Award for the Best Book in Comparative politics.

Reviews

[Clif · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, it's a tired phrase that you can't tell a book by its cover, but this work is a perfect example. Look at the plain dark brown cover with nothing but the title and the author's name on it. A typical textbook would look exciting by comparison. It's likely this book IS used as a textbook, yet inside lurks eye-opening information on that teeny tiny percentage of the population that has tremendous wealth and wants above all to protect it. How do they do it?

It's always been the case the the many are dominated by the few, but this book is not about the elite. The elite may be defined by education or political connection, celebrity or outstanding achievement in many areas. This book is concerned only with those who command vast material resources (wealth), who may or may not be involved directly in politics or any other area. Jeffrey Winters examines how this tiny fraction of the top 1% by wealth manages not only to keep it but to protect the income that goes with it.

So what you say? Of course the rich want to keep what they have.

But wait, how do they do it? Thus begins a wonderful story reaching back to ancient Greece and Rome. Winters has come up with a theory that covers the field of wealth protection.

Oligarchs (the supremely wealthy) can fight each other with hired armies as with ancient warlords or the Mafia. In this case the oligarch himself is armed and ready to fight if need be. This can be relatively stable but what if one warlord manages to gain supremacy?

In that case, it can become a "sultanistic" arrangement whereby one supremely powerful oligarch overawes all the rest but through his immense power can maintain order, giving and withdrawing favors to keep the second rank in line - thus protecting their wealth and allowing them to disarm. What follows is a detailed account of 20th century Indonesia, where General Suharto accomplished this very thing. But after decades of stability, it fell apart because of his one weakness. What was that? You gotta read the book!

Another stable system can be many unarmed oligarchs with a system of laws to protect their assets. Look to Rome where the contesting oligarchs as senators often were military leaders as well. Did you know there were strict rules prohibiting soldiers from appearing in uniform in the district of Rome? It was to keep someone from marching on Rome and taking supreme power. But it finally happened and Winters relates all kinds of wonderful details on how it did, including the murder of Caesar. Is this beginning to sound interesting?

What about the type of government? Does democracy tame oligarchs? We know it doesn't! It's a major assertion of Winters that oligarchy can live quite happily with any system that maintains order and does not deprive them of their wealth or their income.

Without a "sultan" or direct force between equals to maintain wealth, there must be a strong legal system, but not necessarily one that protects individual freedoms, only one that protects property. The example is Singapore, where the reader learns of Lee Kwan Yew, a remarkable man who would tolerate no corruption by oligarchs and had a government agency dedicated to going after them without prejudice if they tried to pull any funny business. It worked marvelously, but forget about freedom of speech and don't get caught spitting on the sidewalk! The beauty of the strong legal system is that oligarchs need not be armed or have hired thugs for protection. It's a good life for the multi-billionaires under the law, but now a completely different kind of army for hire is needed: the tens-of-thousands-strong army of wealth-protection paper-pushers.

This is a group of ordinary people, moderately wealthy at best, whose jobs are dedicated to figuring out how the ultra-wealthy can keep their income away from Uncle Sam. This army reduces the effective tax on the uber-rich to the same level as the average working person, or even to no tax being paid at all. The catch is - you have to have so many millions to spare to hire this army, that it isn't affordable for any but the richest of the richest. Thus is the tax burden passed down to the merely rich and even so far down as you and me. You'll get a nice history of our income tax to show how this came about.

Confused? Don't be. It's this simple. Suppose you make so much each year that you can hire the wealth protection army for 1% of your income. In return for that, they reduce your income tax to a few percent of your income or even nothing at all. So you have lost 1% of your income to the army you hired, and, say, 2% more in actual tax that the army couldn't finesse, instead of the 35% someone in the top tax bracket would pay without the services of the army. That means you have effectively lost 3% of your income. Someone who makes $25,000 a year will pay three times that percentage or more! This makes income tax regressive - the more you make, the less you pay as a percentage.

Have I convinced you that this book is anything but dull reading? There's so much to learn for all of us in this slim text that is a delightful blend of history, current affairs and economics.

Thank you for an education, Mr. Winters!

[Nils · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very clarifying book about what distinguishes oligarchs from other sorts of elites — in a nutshell: concentrated efforts to protect their wealth. Which then follows with a carefully delineated typology of different sorts of oligarchies, based how much their authority structures are institutionalized versus personalistic, and how much the oligarchs rely on personal militias. The only curiosity in the book is that despite going through many examples of different sorts of oligarchies, from medieval city-states to the United States to SE Asian dictators to African warlords to mafia commissions, it largely avoids discussing what many take to be the paradigmatic contemporary case of oligarchs, namely Russia during the 1990s.

[Maru Kun]

Very interesting review of this book here: How the oligarchy wins: lessons from ancient Greece

[Kaberoi Rua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite all the confusion, oligarchy is – and oligarchs are – extremely important for understanding politics, whether ancient or contemporary, poor or advanced-industrial. The main problem is that the concept has defied clear definition. The solution lies in defining oligarchs and oligarchy in a manner that is precise, consistent, and yet still provides an analytical framework that is broad enough to be theoretically meaningful across a range of cases. “Rule by the few” simply will not do.

Winter’s provides a prudent analysis and reasonable theory on oligarchy and oligarchs in general. Using historical and present case studies such as the Mafia, Ancient Athens, Rome, Medieval Europe, Indonesia, Philippians, United States, and Singapore to name a few. The case studies are the foundations for each of the four types of oligarchies as described by Winters throughout the book: Warring, Ruling, Sultanistic, and Civil. Winters describes how oligarchs are actors who command and control massive concentrations of material resources that can be deployed to defend or enhance their personal wealth and exclusive social position. The resources must be available to be used for personal interests even if they are personally owned. His definition of oligarchs integrates into his definition of oligarchy which refers to the politics of wealth defense by materially endowed actors. Wealth defense of oligarchs has two components: property defense (securing basic claims to wealth and property) and income defense (keeping as much of the flow of income and profits from one’s wealth as possible under conditions of secure property rights). He also clarifies the confusion not just on the oligarchy concept but the elite theory as well, the two are surprisingly different. Winters provides a clear definition of the oligarchy subject which is a great framework to build on by future scholars engaging in the topic.

However, I gave the book a 3 due to my disagreement with both the author and Aristotle in that oligarchy and democracy could be durably fused (compatible) as long as the many poor did not threaten the few rich through representative institutions, and the few rich did not concentrate wealth to the point that the many poor became politically explosive. There were no examples or cases studies presented by the author or the philosopher to prove whether that statement is right or not. I do have my own opinions of the incompatibility of the two using the United States as an alone example but my opinions are irrelevant to the review of this work. I also thought his references became a bit excessive. Referencing is scholarly but a 11-an-half page bibliography was a bit much for a 285 page read. Overall I did enjoy the theories, concepts, and case studies presented in this work. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the study of political philosophy.

[Gde Dwitya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winters’ Oligarchy is a book elaborating a theory of how extremely concentrated wealth at the hand of powerful minority induces extreme political inequality. By doing so, he clarifies the oligarchy theory that has been muddled by the elite theory. He claims that not all powerful minorities are oligarchic in nature. Only those that are materially endowed as their source of power can be called oligarchs and their politics of wealth defense is what oligarchy is all about. The definition of oligarchs is constant across time but the oligarchy is varied. Winters also provides typology of oligarchy in his book: Warring, Ruling, Civil, and Sultanistic.
An important theoretical proposition of Winters’ book is that taming oligarchy has little to do with democratization. Both are two different enterprises: democracy is about dispersal of political power while oligarchy is about concentration of material power. In fact, democracy only poses potential threat to oligarchy if the majority of the masses are set to commit radical material redistribution. Following Aristotle, Winters mentions the fusion of oligarchy and democracy in which “the wealthy few is not overly oppressive and the many poor will not threaten the rich” as a solution to a stable polity.
This means that it does not need to be a radical redistribution in the future, and there is no need to have a radical historical project to cease oligarchy altogether. What it needs is only taming oligarchy. It is important and interesting since it is quite a departure from a Marxist ideal of classless society which implies a radical redistribution of material wealth and reclaiming factors of production from the capitalist few. Implications of Winters’ book to praxis which is a departure from Marxist ideal is also coincided with its more Weberian nature of theorizing the locus of power in society. This book is Weberian in nature and yet at the same time is also fully materialist.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very dense (and occasionally dry) but interesting book that seeks to conceptualize and categorize "oligarchy." He divides oligarchy into four types--warring, sultanistic, and civil--and provides examples of each. With regard to civil oligarchies, he stresses the point that oligarchy and democracy are not mutually exclusive--they only become so when democratic participation "challenges material stratification specifically." This point is useful when conceptualizing oligarchy as something that transcends the formal system of government, but it relies on a very thin conception of democracy (free and fair elections, multiple parties, etc.).

Winters explores the tools oligarchs use to protect income/wealth and how political leaders or systems attempt to tame them, but the discussion leaves out the important question of how oligarchs achieve their great wealth in the first place.

I would have also liked to see an expanded treatment of the resurgence of oligarchs in post-Soviet Russia (or other Eastern European countries) and the coexistence of oligarchy and social democracy in Western Europe. He only briefly addresses these in his conclusion, but they are interesting cases that really get to the heart of the power dimension of oligarchy.

All in all, though, I found this a valuable synthesis of history and theory and worth the time spent reading it.

3.7 stars

[Bookshark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure his distinction between those who have enough wealth to engage in wealth defense and those who do not stands up. There are plenty of people who he does not seem to be counting as oligarchs who hire financial professionals to ensure they pay the minimum amount of taxes possible. The difference between the 5%ers with their stock brokers and accountants and the ultra-rich .1% with their high-powered teams of tax evasion experts seems to be one of degree, not the qualitative difference he seems to believe it is. Some quantitative line between the merely rich and the oligarchs is probably still necessary.

His argument that oligarchy and democracy are compatible seems to only be true for certain narrow conceptions of democracy (liberal, Schumpeterian, etc).

His distinction between tamed and untamed oligarchies is rather unclear.

However, this is an important topic, and this is one of the few texts that attempts to theorize oligarchy as a distinct phenomena. I also appreciated that his theory was linked to case studies, a move not often seen in theoretically inclined texts. Overall, a good read.

[Arliawan A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like many Indonesians, I always wonder why after the fall of the authoritarian regime of Soeharto in 1998, Indonesia is still in struggle to eradicate corruption and ensure good governance. This remains even during the leadership of a so-called “people’s president”. In fact, corruption, nepotism, and collusion among businessmen and government elites grow even stronger since the democratic transition. How is it possible that Indonesia was ranked the most democratic but, at the same time, the most corrupt country in Southeast Asia?

This book provides one of the most possible answers to the questions above. While Soeharto’s fall transformed Indonesia from dictatorship to democracy, it also provoked a dramatic transition from a Soeharto-led sultanistic oligarchy to a ruling oligarchy. This book argues that the second transition is the major contributor to Indonesia’s political and economic problems.

It is a fascinating book to read and another great academic work about Indonesian politics written by an international scholar.

NB: This book comprehensively discusses oligarchy and oligarchs in general and is not limited to Indonesia's oligarchy.

[Agung · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is the main locomotive of politics? For liberals, it is the tension in the social contract between the sovereign and the constituents. For Marxists, it is the struggle in defining relations of production between the proles and the bourg. In this book, Winters offer a new lens to see politics and history through: the struggle of the oligarchy in the defense of their material wealth.

In emphasizing the ownership of the means of production, Marx’s theory of the capitalist bourgeoisie focuses on the power of actors who deploy material resources economically with important social and political effects. In oligarchic theory, the focus is on the power of actors who deploy material resources politically with important economic effects.

Both approaches are materialists, but the Oligarchic theory does not concern itself with any particular modes of production.

So who are these Oligarch? Well, the rich of course! Not just your normal kind of rich, but private-islands kind of rich. Those who possess enough material wealth that they can mobilize an army in defiance of the state system, both the AK47-trotting kind of armies and the paper-pusher kind of armies.

Who are these oligarchs defending their wealth against? Three kind of threats:
1. Above: By another oligarchic system i.e. the Athenian/Spartan oligarchy vs the Persian empire
2. Lateral: By their fellow oligarchs within the same system i.e. The Roman Civil War, Bupatis in Dutch East Indies
3. Below: By the less wealthy/privileged i.e. every socialist revolution, peasant revolt, and slave revolt.

How do they defend their wealth in any given state? Depends on the nature of the state in question.

In a weak state, the oligarchs will need to arm themselves and conduct small-to-medium size war against their fellow oligarchs, the state apparatus, or the proles.

When a sufficient number of oligarch reached an agreement, took control of the state apparatus, and use the state system to regulate competition among themselves and ensure their material privelege against the underclass, they became what was termed as ruling oligarchy.

When a single oligarch manages to subsume the entire apparatus of the state such that they could overwhelm any other oligarch, and those other oligarch has to act subservient to the leading oligarch by disarming themselves, it's called sultanistic oligarchy

When the state apparatus has become so strong that it could guarantee the safety of any oligarch's material wealth while defending itself against any subversion by the oligarchs, it's called civil oligarchy. Here, the oligarchs only need to deploy their army of lawyers and PR managers in order to wage war against one another or against the state's attempt at taxing them.

What about Indonesia, my motherland? During the Suharto's era, Indonesia was the archetype of the sultanistic oligarchy.

Pre-1965, there were no individual with enough material wealth to bear the title of 'oligarch' in Indonesia. Partly because that the revolution of 1945-1949 destabilized the entire material condition within the country, and partly because of the aggressiveness of the PKI in their assault against the rich. Suharto, in one stroke, took absolute control of the state and eliminated the threat from the underclass by massacring anyone accused as being leftist. For a brief few years, he was the only one who could claim the status of being an 'oligarch' in Indonesia

Suharto then proceeded to distribute property rights and bussiness permits using state's resource, with the understanding that the individuals he favored with such privilige has to play subservient to him and support his cause. His personal control over access to the state’s petro-dollars, cheap bank credit, and the granting (or blocking) of permits for businesses across all sectors meant that indigenous oligarchs were fully under his sway

The Indonesian Oligarchy is near-entirely the creation of Suharto

Things start to go wrong when Suharto's kids grew up. Where Suharto was generally **fair** in dealing with his consierge, his then-grown-up kids began to be put into position of privilege in obtaining property rights and business permits. Where before, each oligarch had to tip-toe around Suharto in their competition between each other, the kids can bulldoze other oligarchs due to Suharto's unyielding support of them.

The Asian financial crisis of 1997 brought the house of cards to ruin. Mass demonstration by the proles and the loss of support from the oligarchs ensures that Suharto's family was isolated. Even then, he just resigned and peacefully f-ed off to his private residence in Menteng, Central Jakarta.

With Suharto gone, the Indonesian oligarch were struggling to set new rules in their competition with each other. Thankfully, they didn't feel the need to arm themselves in order to defend their wealth. Why would they? The entire apparatus of the state were(are) within the hands of the oligarchy. They just needed to establish new laws and norms which would prevent their fellow oligarch from taking too much power.

The contemporary state of Indonesian politics is somewhere between ruling oligarchy or civil oligarchy

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Winter's theory is contained within his lengthy definition of the word oligarchy. It is a good and interesting one, but does contain in my opinion a major flaw.

Winter's definition focuses on the concentration of material wealth and the unique form of power it gives its hoarder. As for the oligarch, they are a very singular type of elite who have existed nearly as long as humans have been producing surpluses.

Winter see four kinds of oligarchy: warring, who are engaged in an armed and violent Hobbsian-style war of all against all; ruling, who either partially or fully disarm, get together, and form a state for their own collective benefit; "sultanistic," where a single supreme oligarch keeps the rest unarmed and in check; and civil, where all oligarchs are unarmed and submit to an impersonal law in exchange for guarantees to rights to their private property.

Overall this uncomplicated structure and its transhistorical quality gives it the flavor of a method (or lens through which to look) which can be handily employed for analysis in a variety of situations.

There are some other aspects of oligarchy which for Winter are also important, such as it not being in opposition to democracy, because in fact there have been no democracies in "recorded history" that do not have oligarchs. Another is the main focus of the transhistorical oligarch is defense of their wealth.

It is these other aspects which I find the flaw. The first, that oligarchy is not in contradiction with democracy, I question, and might posit that the two actually make a quite productive contradiction to focus on, but nonetheless feel it at least somewhat logically leads to the second, which is the focus on wealth defense. The flaw I see here is Winter entirely ignores the other side of the ledger from wealth defense, which put that way I guess you could call "wealth offense."

Instead of wealth defense, I think it makes more sense that an oligarch's primary focus is on acquiring and making their wealth hoard grow. Of course defense is always necessary, but what characterizes their activity, what makes these transhistorical actors a threat to others and their "life, liberty, and happiness," is their aggressive hoarding of value and their way of lording it over others.

So if I was a professor at Northwest University, put in years of hard work and wrote this book instead of Jeffrey Winters, that is a change I would make to the definition (well, this is my review anyway). But I think that change is large enough it affects his concept of civil oligarchy because it fairly strongly goes against the thrust of his argument in that chapter of the book.

To boil it down, the best evidence I can produce from the work itself as to why I think that is a necessary change to his definition is contained in his description of social relations in civil oligarchy:

The efforts at income defense on the part of oligarchs in the American civil oligarchy have unfolded under conditions both of the high rule of law and of participatory democracy. The oligarchic and democratic elements of the system have coexisted far more than clashed. This suggests that there is nothing inherently incompatible about civil oligarchy and liberal democracy as long as oligarchic property and incomes are threatened only by episodic rather than sustained class legislation of the sort attempted in 1894 and 1913. During the long periods between episodes of mass-mobilizational and occasional national crises of war and economic collapse, oligarchs have waged and won a steady battle to defend their incomes. Income defense by oligarchs has necessarily meant pushing the costs of government onto less wealthy strata. That political struggle has been waged by oligarchs — directly and through their agents – as much against the mass affluent as against the remainder of society.

However, this rather unproductively contradicts other evidence he constructs in another part of the chapter:

The evidence is strong that wealth plays a significant role in shaping policy outcomes in the United States (Phillips 2002; Hacker and Pierson 2010). Larry Bartels (2005, 2008) and Martin Gilens (2005) show that wealthier constituents exert far more influence over government decisions than Americans of modest means, and that the effects of undifferentiated public opinion on decision makers are almost zero.

And such findings are only backed up by further studies since this book was published, such as Gilens and Page, 2014. In short, by focusing on wealth defense, to a degree Winters obscures the main problematic of oligarchy and, without stating outright, concludes such a transhistorical phenomenon cannot be defeated, and under current conditions (in the West) suggests it should even be considered benign—even though he provides evidence otherwise.

[Tengku Derizal · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Seeing the World as It Truly Is"

While I had come across fragments of these ideas over the years, through news, academic discussions, or political commentary, I only began thinking about them seriously several years ago. It was during my MBA journey that I finally decided to delve deeply into "Oligarchy" by Jeffrey A. Winters, seeking to understand how power truly works, especially in profoundly unequal societies like Indonesia.

Winters develops a strikingly original framework that moves beyond the usual dichotomies of democracy vs. dictatorship or rich vs. poor. At the heart of his argument is the concept of wealth defence: the idea that oligarchs—those with immense material power—organise politically not to govern per se, but to protect and preserve their wealth. This is the defining trait across historical and contemporary oligarchies, whether in ancient city-states, authoritarian regimes, or liberal democracies.

His typology—warring, ruling, sultanic, and civil oligarchies—offers sharp insight into how elites adapt across political systems. Crucially, Winters reveals that democracy does not displace oligarchy; it often coexists with it. In fact, modern democracies, such as the United States, have evolved into what he calls civil oligarchies, where legal structures like campaign financing, tax regimes, and deregulation function to entrench the power of the wealthiest, all while upholding a façade of political equality.

His 2015 lecture at Universitas Negeri Jakarta brings these insights closer to home. Using Indonesia as a case study, Winters explains how there were no non-oligarchic options in the 2014 presidential election. Despite a populist image, Jokowi’s rise still depended on oligarchic networks. The political spectrum in Indonesia—lacking a credible “left” since 1965—means that elections are largely a contest among factions of the elite. As Winters states, that "the people are invited to vote, but cannot create their own candidates (rakyat dipersilahkan memilih, tetapi tidak bisa menciptakan calon sendiri)".

Reading this book has been transformative. Policies and events that once seemed irrational or contradictory suddenly made perfect sense. This book gives you a lens, and once you see the world through it, you cannot unsee it. That’s why I now consider it one of the most important books I’ve ever read.

To fully appreciate its power, read it alongside statistical data, news reports, social media trends, and your lived reality. You’ll start connecting the dots. What once felt like isolated incidents—tax breaks for the ultra-rich, weak corruption enforcement, election spectacle without substance—will reveal themselves as patterns of oligarchic logic.

Who should read this book?
Anyone who seeks to understand why their country doesn’t work as it should. Anyone puzzled by why poverty and inequality persist despite democratic institutions. Anyone brave enough to want to see the world clearly.

This isn’t just a book. It’s intellectual armour.
A must-read.

Pair this with Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Together, these two works offer a conceptual and empirical map to navigate today’s complex socio-political-economic landscape. As the world becomes increasingly oligarchic—not only through traditional channels like natural resource control but also through concentrated power in tech and finance—their relevance only grows. Ignore these books at your own risk.

[Stefen Widokho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oligarki adalah beberapa pihak yang memiliki kekayaan yang ekstrem dengan menguasai bisnis yang strategis

Fokus oligark( perseorangan yang masuk ke oligarki) adalah menjaga kekayaan yang dimiliki supaya berkelanjutan dengan mengidentifikasi dan menuntaskan masalah yang timbul

Saya membaca buku ini karena ada bab yang menceritakan tentang pak Suharto dan bagaimana ia melindungi kekuasaan oligark dengan keamanan dan hubungan saling menguntungkan. Pemilik bisnis dilindungi haknya untuk berbisnis dan penguasa diberikan " sumbangan"

Namun hubungan baik ini mulai retak saat keluarga sang penguasa ikut mencampuri porsi makanan pemilik bisnis yang masuk oligarki ini

Bagi para oligark yang penting itu bukan kekuasaan atau uang tapi mekanisme perlindungan kekayaan yang sudah mereka kumpulkan

Dengan adanya faktor variabel baru berupa anak anak dan cucu penguasa yang minta jatah. Hal ini berimbas ke rentannya "perlindungan kekayaan" mereka. Sehingga kurangnya dukungan para oligarki ini berimbas ke runtuhnya pemerintahan Pak Soeharto

Jeff percaya bahwa demokrasi dan oligarki bisa berjalan seiringan dan demokrasi adalah salah satu mekanisme pertahanan kekayaan untuk oligarki

Bagaimana cara melemahkan oligarki? Pendistribusian kekayaan secara merata. Apakah makan siang gratis termasuk? Ya salah satunya.
Tapi yang lebih penting lagi adalah penyeleksian talenta secara meritokrasi dan kesempatan untuk berkompetisi secara adil.

Its a great book. Even if you only read one chapter about indonesia. Its worth to buy

[Kahfi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buku ini menunjukkan bahwa oligarki meletakan kuncinya pada bagaimana para oligark memiliki manuver-manuver yang mampu melanggengkan kekayaan sekaligus kekuasaan nya, buku ini sangat memiliki perspektif bosisme dalam kaitan nya dengan sistem perpolitikan Indonesia kontemporer.

Secara garis besar, buku ini cukup baik dalam menjelaskan proses kelahiran oligark-oligark versi lama dalam suatu ekspansi masif sampai ke dunia politik, pun buku ini sangat sentralistik karena hanya menyorot peran segelintir orang dalam menciptakan tatanan oligarki.

Pada akhirnya, buku ini mampu menjadi rujukan yang cukup untuk dipertimbangkan mengingat corak oligarki di Indonesia beberapa nya terdapat masih mengkultuskan pribadi tertentu.

[Ray Savarda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting from a academic, methodical, overview approach, but not that engaging as I read it.
It was good to see his organization of the types of oligarchies, and discussions of examples of them from a historical perspective, and a good final chapter on Oligarchy in the use as it was reflected in historical taxation attempts by the government and the ways the really rich quickly found ways around them, and the lack of an effort to fix those mechanisms, and instead just spread the taxation across the rest of the US to compensate, letting the oligarchs off the hook, essentially.

[Brian Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful

Gave me a new perspective on ancient and modern history. Changed how I view and understand the Roman Republic and Empire, and the modern history of the US income tax law. Keeps a clear focus on the topic of oligarchic theory and its fundamental points, along with the insights gained with such an analysis.

[Atif Taj · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author discusses four types of oligarchy: warring, ruling, sultanistic, civil. One thing that struck was oligarch will serve their own purpose regardless of what just society requires. The premium example is the income inequality during Roman Empire that is comparable to present times and in order to achieve the maximum wealth and income, violence is the key ingredient.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Offers a framework for understanding oligarchies and oligarch behavior; then applies the framework to multiple scenarios from history (ancient and recent). That said, I'm not a trained historian or economist so possibly someone in one of those categories would find issues here.

[Syahrul Ramadhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buku yang begitu jelas dalam mendefinisikan oligarki dalam berbagai jenisnya. MUST READ!!!!

[Andyni · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book in 2021.

[Albert Ananyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winters develops oligarchic theory by clearly distinguishing it from elite theories. Unlike elites, oligarchs are defined strictly by Material Power, not by holding office or having influence. In this sense, Oligarchy is not a form of government but a timeless political process. It is the fierce defense of extreme wealth. This can be found across time, from Rome and Athens to feudal Europe and contemporary USA.

[Rick Claypool · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winters' analysis of the phenomena of oligarchy -- the stratum of the super wealthy who exist at the very top of the wealth scale and aim to keep it that way -- is insightful and compelling. If you are frustrated when you hear about the likes of Sheldon Adelson or Charles and David Koch pouring millions of dollars into distorting U.S. elections, this book provides a keen insight into why, as a class, oligarchs do it, and is rich with historical and global examples of how oligarchs achieve what they want, which is primarily just one thing: to fend of perceived threats to their own wealth and income.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very taught presentation of a basic sociology theory. According to Winters oligarchy is not just rule by the few, but rule by those who have material power, usually in the form of great wealth. The book details out all of the criteria for being an oligarch and then gives a bunch of historical cases that are divided into different types: warring, ruling, sultanistic, and civil oligarchies. Winters contends that the U.S. is a civil oligarch where politics is controlled by the wealthy who pay for an entire industry that is dedicated to income defense. The introductory theory chapter is particularly well-done.

[mharipin · Rating 3 out of 5]

buku ini saya baca secara diskriminatif. hanya baca serius bab 1 (elaborasi teoretis) dan bab tentang 'oligarki sultanistik' (Indonesia dan Filipina), sedangkan bab yang lain dibaca cepat.
sejak bagian teori, banyak isu yang patut dipermasalahkan. kenapa Winters mengambil 'putaran' ke 'teori oligarki' ketika dirinya menilai Marxist tidak memadai, padahal saya pikir neo-Marxist memiliki banyak persinggungan dengan apa yang 'dipikirkan' Winters.
saya pernah menulis critical review buku ini. tapi filenya di kantor, mungkin nanti saya paste saja

[Richard]

(Cited as an important theoretical work by Nicholas Mulder while being interviewed in April 2022 on the Ezra Klein podcast by guest interviewer Rogé Karma: Sanctions Against Russia Are a Form of War. It’s Time We Recognize That.)

[Álex Zavershynskyy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting approach / framework to analyse oligarchies.

The author introduce a classification across 2 axes: how unarmed and how collaborative (within the oligarchs community) an oligarchy can be.

These 2 axes lead to 4 extreme models of oligarchies. These 4 extremes are analysed separately in different chapters both from theoretical perspective and also providing “case studies” from all across the globe and history: Athens, Rome, USA, Indonesia, etc.

[UChicagoLaw]

"Jeffrey Winters’ Oligarchy is by a Northwestern University political scientist who specializes in Southeast Asia. Ranging from Indonesia to Ancient Rome to the contemporary United States, he explores the politics of the defense of wealth across time and space." - Tom Ginsburg

[Joel Robbins · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not finished but there seems to be a lot of redundancy so far.

[Iqbalmuhtarom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memberikan penjelasan teoritik kait kelindan antara uang dan kekuasaan sebagai penopang oligarki, termasuk terbentuknya oligarki di Indonesia

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dry as sand and I couldn't stop reading. If only all scholarship was this good.