ATS3903 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Joseph Schumpeter, Liberal Democracy, Oligarchy

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Week 1: the quandary of leadership and democracy. Leadership is an inescapable, indispensable reality of human organisations. Joseph schumpeter: collectivities act almost exclusively by accepting leadership this is the dominant mechanism of practically any collective action . Without the ambition, commitment, willingness to act of a leader, groups would become paralysed. To listen to proposals from others and mediate differences within the group. To speak for and represent the collective. All organisations, including those committed to democratic ideals and practices, will inevitably succumb to rule by an elite few (an oligarchy). He asserted that elite formation is a functional necessity of complex organisations. Moreover, though democratic organisations may strive to limit leaders from gaining excessive authority, there is an inescapable tendency for elites to augment and perpetuate their power. If we acknowledge leaders are an unavoidable feature of political organisations, then this is an uncomfortable reality for liberal democracies. Democracy came about as a remedy to the problem of leadership.

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