Re: A more general term
"oligarchies" involve any society where the role of the average citizen is to be controlled and looted by a small ruling class with near-absolute power and little in the way of accountability. Kings, czars, commissars, dictators-for-life, Parties of the People, warlords, Incas, anonymous bureaucrats, you name it.
Human societies are constantly degrading to this point (the Iron Law of Oligarchy).