On one hand, yes, the USA has oligarchic components to its government, and we must not ignore them. They are mostly the ones guaranteed by the First Amendment t

On one hand, yes, the USA has oligarchic components to its government, and we must not ignore them. They are mostly the ones guaranteed by the First Amendment to exist, like lobbying and public advertising. We joke that legislators are bought and paid for. Corporations can pay into and steer PACs. And, from a certain point of view, the Electoral College or any other sort of indirect election is oligarchic. In fact, the pattern of having a political council chosen by an oligos of democratically-elected representatives is quite common around the world. On the other hand, "Russian oligarchy" [0] refers specifically to a grand looting of wealth during the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the effects of that transfer of wealth and establishment of corporate power structures are still reverberating throughout Russia. To this day, folks study the unique combination of oligarchy and corporatism in Russia [1]. On the gripping hand, there are functional oligarchies emerging from direct corporate selection of legislators, rather than from indirect effects such as PACs and lobbying, as in the USA. For example, Hong Kong only elects half of its parliament democratically, and half oligarchically [2]. On one hand, three of the latter are labor representatives; however, I count six seats going to the bankers, including the "oligarch"/"businessman" of the article ("insurance", "accounting", "finance", "financial services", and "chamber of commerce" twice, once for HK and once for China!) For another and quite different example, Ireland also only elects one house democratically. The other house consists of the prime minister's hand-picked elders, as well as several oligarchic councils [3]. Unlike any other system I know of, specific universities' graduates are constitutionally appointed to choose several seats. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oligarch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oligarch [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Russian_corporatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Russian_corporatis... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Council_of_Hong_Kong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Council_of_Hong_Ko... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seanad_%C3%89ireann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seanad_%C3%89ireann