oligarchy

George Mason and other proponents of the Bill of Rights intended the First Amendment to prevent the emergence of an aristocracy—or what we would today call an oligarchy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026

Typically wearing a traditional Caribbean shirt, Cepeda forgoes a tie, which he considers a symbol of oligarchy.

From Barron's ● May 25, 2026

I think oligarchy is a perfectly acceptable word to do that.

From Salon ● May 2, 2025

We need to think of oligarchs and oligarchy as being not the absence of democracy, but the presence of people who have tremendous wealth-power.

From Slate ● Nov. 15, 2024

According to Fifi, the alta sociedad, the high-class ladies of the oligarchy who form a kind of club, not unlike a country club, are delighted by this juicy bit of gossip.

From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez

Global supply chains were supposed to lower costs, boost profits and enable democratic values to seep into the terrain of oligarchies, dictatorships and autocracies.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 11, 2022

Autocracies, unlike oligarchies, make for engaging political theater.

From Salon ● Sep. 28, 2021

To the present day at least 10 of the 15 former Soviet republics can be accurately described as oligarchies.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 30, 2019

Dictatorships are sometimes identified as either autocracies or oligarchies.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2016

All past oligarchies have fallen from power either because they ossified or because they grew soft.

From "1984" by George Orwell