This work has been declared by the AHA board as historic, and is superseded by Humanist Manifesto III. The Manifesto is a product of many minds. It was designed to represent a developing point of view, not a new creed.
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Aug22-09, 10:47 PM JRDunassigned: The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German syndicalist sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties. This is actually wrong.
Simon Johnson wrote that the reemergence of an American financial oligarchy is quite recent, a structure which he delineated as being the most advanced in the world. Jeffrey A. Winters wrote that oligarchy and democracy operate within a single system, and American politics is a daily display of their interplay. The top 1% of the U.S. population by wealth in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928.