The fear is that we'll move in the direction from being a…

There are still two forms besides democracy and oligarchy; one of them is universally recognized and included among the four principal forms of government,…

— Aristotle

Because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the…

— Aristotle

“Aristotle’s Politics, Book III, Chapter 8 The real difference between democracy and oligarchy is between poverty and wealth. Wherever the rulers, whether they be…

— Noam Chomsky

Democracy appears to be safer and less liable to revolution than oligarchy. For in oligarchies there is the double danger of the oligarchs falling…

— Aristotle

The real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or…

— Aristotle

Of governments there are said to be only two forms - democracy and oligarchy. For aristocracy is considered to be a kind of oligarchy,…

— Aristotle

A government which is composed of the middle class more nearly approximates to democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of the imperfect…

— Aristotle

Democracy is like three oxen pulling a plough. The oxen are the independent powers, but you have to walk in the same direction; otherwise,…

— Juan Manuel Santos

I ask myself whether Russia is moving in the direction of democracy. I don't believe it is! Bit by bit, Russia is slipping back…

— Vladimir Sorokin

The Russian people have unilaterally made their choice in direction of democracy in the early '90s. They will not be led astray. Nobody should…

— Vladimir Putin

“what it is: an oligarchy,” declared McKinnon. “The system is controlled by a handful of ultra-wealthy people, most of whom got rich from the…

— Jane Mayer

“America was a “civil oligarchy” in which a tiny and extremely wealthy slice of the population was able to use its vastly superior economic…

— Jane Mayer

“the fossil fuel industry is an oligarchy.” Some might dispute that American oil, gas, and coal magnates met the dictionary definition of a small,…

— Jane Mayer

“Liberal critics, like the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize–winning economist, worried that the country was in danger of being transformed…

— Jane Mayer

Dark influences from the American past congregate among us still. If we are a democracy, what are we to make of the palpable elements…

— Harold Bloom