The Oligarch

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. 1: On the Types of Oligarchies

   • James Sherry

   Pages 1-22

3. 2: On the Details of Acquisition and Management of Organizations

   • James Sherry

   Pages 23-40

4. 3: Regarding the Form of Oligarchies

   • James Sherry

   Pages 41-60

5. 4: On Managing Assets within Organizations

   • James Sherry

   Pages 61-80

6. 5: Guidance on Oligarchic Comportment

   • James Sherry

   Pages 81-108

7. 6: On the Projects of Oligarchs

   • James Sherry

   Pages 109-119

8. 7: Regarding Good Offices

   • James Sherry

   Pages 121-142

9. 8: On Risk Management and Marketplace Mentality

   • James Sherry

   Pages 143-156

10. Back Matter

    Pages 157-157

    PDF

This book uses the structure of Machiavelli’s The Prince to show how governance has changed over the last 500 years. If Machiavelli focuses on power concentrated in the hands of the republic or principalities, The Oligarch looks at how states and companies today function as oligarchies. Rather than dealing with the form of government, it addresses the operations and networks of governance for both states and corporations as a single set of common processes. The author links politics, ecology and literature, by using the literary device of appropriation to raise awareness of ecology and the overreach of powerful people, offering both wielders and critics of power a common ground based on how people in power actually conduct themselves. 

• Niccolo Machivelli's The Prince
• Modern Oligarchy
• Governance and Power
• Inherent vs Imposed Governance
• culture of states and corporations
• Civil and ecclesiastical oligarchy
• Ecology and sustainability
• Literary analysis
• social satire
• Inheritance
• bequeathed organization
• complexity theory
• financialization
• operational strategies of corporate and state actors

“Admirers of Machiavelli’s ideas and style will enjoy this slim and provocative book which addresses a topic dear to the Florentine secretary: the role of elites in society and politics. James Sherry adds a new twist by taking account of the work of twentieth century ‘Machiavellians’ such as Gaetano Mosca, early James Burnham, as well as the networks described by ecologists. The result is a smart and ironic view of the contemporary networks of oligarchs, in business as well as in politics and society. Readers interested in such different topics as populism, corporate business, high-level politics and the inevitable Donald Trump will find food for thought—accompanied by Machiavellian wit.” (Giovanni Giorgini, Professor of Political Theory, University of Bologna, Italy and Princeton University, USA)

“500 years after Machiavelli, James Sherry offers us a modern [and wide-ranging] treatise on the oligarchs who now rule our world and how they gain and maintain power. One wonders if the pejorative ‘Sherryan’ will be hurled at the power plays of future oligarchs.”  (Jeff Cohen, Director, Park Center for Independent Media, Ithaca College, USA)

• New York, USA

  James Sherry

James Sherry is the author of 12 books of criticism and poetry, most recently Oops! Environmental Poetics (2013) and Entangled Bank (2016). He is the editor of Roof Books, a literary press (roofbooks.com) in New York City, USA.

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