A Quote from Robert Michels on Democracy and the "Iron law of Oligarcy"

"Organization implies the tendency to oligarchy.  In every organization, whether it be a political party, a professional union, or any other association of the kind, the aristocratic tendency manifests this very clearly.  The mechanism of the organization, while conferring a solidity of structure, induces serious changes in the organized mass, completely inverting the respective position of the leaders and the led...With the advance of organization, democracy tends to decline.  Democratic evolution has a parabolic course.  At the present time, at any rate as far as party life is concerned, democracy is in the descending phase. It may be enunciated as a general rule that the increase in the power of the leaders is directly proportional with the extension of the organization."

"The democratic currents of history resemble successive waves.  They break ever on the same shoal. They are never renewed.  This enduring spectacle is simultaneously encouraging and depressing. When democracies have gained a certain state of development, they undergo a gradual transformation, adopting the aristocratic spirit, and in many cases also the aristocratic forms, against which at the outset they struggles do fiercely.  Now new accusers arise to denounce the traitors; after an era of glorious combats and inglorious power, they end by fusing with the dominant class; whereupon once more they are in their turn attacked by fresh opponents who appeal to the name of democracy.  It is probably that this cruel game will continue without end."  From <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Political-Parties-Sociological-Oligarchical-Tendencies/dp/0765804697/sr=1-1/qid=1169343822/ref=sr_1_1/102-4913444-1098564?ie=UTF8&s=books"/>Robert Michels