Élites

By Dr Michael Stanford

new perspective Vol 1,  No 3

So Jane Austen opens Persuasion. She refers to one of the most familiar élites in English society - the aristocracy and landed gentry. Elliott as a baronet was on the intersection of these two groups: groups that in other countries together form the noblesse or nobility.

What is an ‘élite’? Literally (as its Latin root shows) it refers to those who are chosen - elected or selected. (In New England the elected local councillors are still called ‘selectmen’.) Late in the last century the word emerged as a sociological term for the ruling group in any society. While still used in this sense by sociologists and historians, the concept is now also encountered in the popular and pejorative terms - ‘élitist’ and ‘élitism’.

Élites and élitism are therefore opposed to ideas of equality and to pluralist theories of power. Élites, we may say, rest on claims of superiority which are believed to justify exceptional power, wealth, status, or privilege. Such claims to superiority usually rest on proven ability, skill, character, birth or education. Élites may be found in every kind of society - political (at different levels), military, religious, sporting, educational, industrial, academic, and so on. Examples of élites include Junkers in Prussia, Brahmins in India, the Aztecs in ancient Mexico, Fascists in the Europe of the 1930s, the nomenklatura of Brezhnev’s USSR, the Énarques of contemporary France, or the Brigade of Guards in the British army. Can you find examples of élites in the USA?

All these interest the historian, but political élites the most. How does a minority gain and retain power over the majority?

In Europe the roots go back to the Dark Ages, where societies were believed to be divided Into those who prayed, those who fought and those who worked. The first group were churchmen, the second group were the nobility and knights, and the third were everybody else. This idea still shaped the Estates-General of France when they convened in May 1789. It was the basic structural theory for most European societies until recent times - until, in fact, agrarian societies gave way to industrial ones. Before this century such societies were dominated by a landed élite, usually placed there by the feudal system (though not in Russia), and preserving privileges, titles, legal status and a degree of military power that often rivalled that of the monarchy.

This arrangement was hardly challenged before the seventeenth century when the rise to power and status of a very unmartial noblesse de robe administrators rather than soldiers - raised awkward questions about the social role of the old nobility and the justification of their privileges a question that the French nobility answered themselves on August 4th 1789. Cervantes’ Don Quixote obliquely raises the same question in Spain.

However they arrive at their position, élites tend to secure for themselves disproportionate amounts of power, wealth and status. The first two they can get for themselves, the third has to be granted by others. Hence élites strive to impress the majority with their natural superiority - a superiority that, once recognised, leads the others to tolerate the élite’s excessive shares of power and wealth.

The characteristics of such a successful minority are organisation and mutual support, exclusiveness, anti-democratic and anti-socialist convictions, belief in the superiority of their own qualities and abilities, and pride - that they are not as other people. (Pride is regarded by moralists as the deadliest of the seven deadly sins.)

In the past élites made a conspicuous show of their claims; the castles, weapons and armour of the European Middle Ages, the fantastic costumes of élite regiments, the sword of a Japanese samurai, the crushed feet or long finger-nails of a Chinese lady were as blatant an assertion of ‘otherness’ as the ‘conspicuous consumption’ of a modern plutocracy. More interesting to the sociologist and historian are the subtle ways in which élites reveal themselves in a republic or a democracy. Think of the simple, purple-bordered toga of a Roman senator, the neat plain black dress of a ‘regent’ in seventeenth-century Holland, or the accent, courteous demeanour and old school tie of a member of the contemporary-English, ‘Establishment’.

What is to be said in their defence? Somebody has to make the big decisions for the whole society. Most of us lack the time, the ability and the inclination for public affairs. Plato’s Republic began political philosophy nearly twenty-four centuries ago. He makes a strong case for entrusting power to those whose upbringing and education (though not birth) best fit them for it. From a political standpoint, central questions include: How is an élite selected? Is it only by ability? How open is the élite to new talent?

If élitism conflicts with equality and fraternity, must we deny superiority? By no means. Quality should be recognised in all things. Superior abilities - for example, in speaking, fighting, governing, seamanship or sport - should receive only the admiration appropriate to that skill. Such excellences do not justify the unequal shares of privilege, wealth or status to which élites commonly lay claim.

Dr Michael Stanford is the author of A Companion to the Study of History, Basil Blackwell, 1994