On the Emergence of Oligarchy in Human Interaction

Abstract

The elementary conditions of human interaction generate Michels's (1910) "iron law of oligarchy" and Mosca's (1896) major proposition on system size and ruling elites, the latter holding without regard to the definitional restrictions recently examined by Mayhew (1973). Specifically, the structure of focused face-to-face interaction constrains chance expectations for power relations. Power is constrained to equalize (by change alone) as interaction sequences increase in length. Power is constrained to polarize (by chance alone) as group size increases. Since interaction sequences falling within the operative range of human perception as specified by Miller (1956) and Simon (1974) are relatively short, power will be increasingly concentrated as a function of group size in most situations, yielding Michels's law and Mosca's proposition. As these regularities hold at much smaller sizes than originally specified by Michels (1911), their implications for macro-level control structures are examined in light of the results. It is concluded that control structures at the macro level are likely to be affected by considerations above and beyond those imposed by face-to-face (micro-level) interaction.