&gt; 1) Oligarchies are not dictatorships.<p>Good enough for a general heuristic. On paper we are Constitutional Republic and not a Democracy either. But it depends on the level of conversation. Most people on the street would not know Constitutional Republic vs a Democracy even if it hit them on the nose.<p>&gt; 2) The US was founded as an oligarchy and has been a relatively stable one. This being the case, the OP&#x27;s point still stands.<p>Note: I didn&#x27;t say a dictatorship would be unstable or everyone would have a bad time. There are and have been  lot of dictatorships people support(ed) and didn&#x27;t rebel against in order to turn them into democracies.<p>The bottom line is people don&#x27;t have the representative power they think they have. And other, most concentrated power centers make decisions for them. Whether it is one person or 20 large companies doesn&#x27;t matter much. I can&#x27;t quite be one person so on paper it will never be dictatorship, just like on paper very few countries identify as &quot;The United Dictatorship of &lt;blah&gt;&quot;. Even North Korea, is a &quot;Democratic Republic&quot; on paper. That doesn&#x27;t mean it is one in reality.