This work has been declared by the AHA board as historic, and is superseded by Humanist Manifesto III.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.
In their torture chamber conversations, he tells Winston that The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, the book by Emmanuel Goldstein, was written by a committee that included him. When Winston asks O'Brien if the book is true, he replies: As description, yes.hat the three opposing ideologies are functionally identical is central to the revelations of The Book. The term oligarchical collectivism is similar to the theory of bureaucratic collectivism put forth by some Trotskyists in the late 1930s.