Why Every Revolution Installs New Middle Managers
There’s a bitter joke that circulates among historians of failed utopias: the revolution always wins, and the revolution always loses. The bastards are overthrown. The people take power. And within a decade, a fresh crop of administrators is stamping forms, scheduling meetings, and explaining to you why your petition for bread requires three levels of approval. This isn’t cynicism. It’s sociology. In 1911, a German-Italian political scientist named Robert Michels published a devastating analysis of what he called the “Iron Law of Oligarchy.” He had spent years watching Europe’s socialist parties—organizations explicitly dedicated to equality and mass participation—slowly transform into bureaucratic machines run by small cliques of professional politicians. The parties didn’t fail because of bad people. They succeeded because of good organizing. And good organizing, Michels argued, inevitably produces new bosses. ...