Beyond the Ruling Class

Strategic Elites in Modern Society

Suzanne Keller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351289184
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Influential minorities have existed in some form in all human societies. Throughout history, such elites have evoked varied responses--respeet. hos-tility, fear. envy, imitation, but never indifference. While certain elite groups have been of only passing historical importance, strategic elites, whose mem-bers are national and international leaders, today are ultimately responsible for the realization of social goals and for the continuity of the social order in a swiftly changing world. This volume, which first appeared in 1963, markeda major advance in our theoretical understanding of these elites, why they are needed, how they operate, and what effect they have on society. Drawing upon the work of such classical writers as Saint-Simon. Marx. Durkheim. Mosca. Pareto. and Michels, and such modern scholars as Mann-heim. Lasswell, Aron. Mills, and Parsons, the author presents a challenging theory of elites that provides the framework for her examination of their co-existence, their social origins, and their rise and decline. The elites discussed here include political, diplomatic, economic, and military, as well as scientific, cultural, and religious ones. Systematically, the author surveys available em-pirical data concerning American society, and selected materials on Great Brit-ain. Germany, the Soviet Union, and the developing nations of Asia and Africa. Written with clarity and distinction. Beyond the Ruling Class remains a thorough and provocative treatment, rich in empirical insights, of a subject that will compel the attention of political scientists, sociologists, and historians concerned with themes of power, influence, and leadership in national and international life. Her new introduction to Beyond the Ruling Class is at once an appraisal of the current status of elite studies and a careful self-evaluation of her efforts.

1 Introduction to the Original Edition

The existence and persistence of influential minorities is one of the constant characteristics of organized social life. Whether a community is small or large, rich or poor, simple or complex, it always sets some of its members apart as very important, very powerful, or very prominent. The notion of a stratum elevated above the mass of men may prompt approval, indifference, or despair, but regardless of how men feel about it, the fact remains that their lives, fortunes, and fate are and have long been dependent on what a small number of men in high places think and do.

A great deal has been said about this fact of social life, but men do not know nearly enough about this minority who in every epoch and generation play a large role in shaping the future—by the laws they pass, the books they write, the wars they win or lose, and by the passions that stir them to action. Like a secret society, those at the top rarely reveal the inner workings of their worlds. There are, of course, eyewitness accounts, inevitable letters to mistresses, diaries written early in life and memoirs at its close, but these bear the same relation to a sociology of elites as a compendium of patients’ symptoms bears to medicine—they contain some raw material but material that is of little value unless it is classified and organized, so that the general may be distinguished from the particular, and the universal from the temporary and idiosyncratic.

Great difficulties face the investigator who wishes to move from anecdote and ideology to testable theory in this field. The subject has been studied by so many different disciplines in different epochs, each using its own terminology and orientation, that it is next to impossible to develop a comparative perspective of the many accumulated insights. It is not easy to be sure of what we “know” about the “managers of collective life” when we meet them in so many different guises—as noble warriors praying to the gods for yet another victory in war, as Oriental potentates clothed in terrible splendor, or as priests jealously guarding their rituals. Moreover, each writer seems to start afresh without recourse to earlier relevant work, and more often than not, fine theoretical insights are blended with ideological and partisan argument, parading as impartial analysis. Objective analysis itself requires at least as a starting point an inventory of relevant concepts and a systematic overview of empirical materials. This is impossible without some explicit theoretical framework. Such a framework is proposed in this book. It is presented in the hope of clarifying the historical development of elites as well as their current role in industrial societies.

Elites defined

Some of the writings in this field suggest that elites are as old as recorded history; others, that they are as new as the machine age— depending on the definitions employed or implied by different authors. At the start, therefore, it is necessary to establish the definition to be used throughout this study. Here the term elites¹ refers first of all to a minority of individuals designated to serve a collectivity in a socially valued way. Elites are effective and responsible minorities—effective as regards the performance of activities of interest and concern to others to whom these elites are responsive. Socially significant elites are ultimately responsible for the realization of major social goals and for the continuity of the social order. Continuity, as used here, implies contributing to an ongoing social process, and while not synonymous with survival includes the possibility of decline.

Social leadership is one of the sustaining forces of organized society. After a given population has reached a certain size, the satisfaction of its material and spiritual needs demands some sort of organization and the establishment of precise rules and roles supported by a system of beliefs. Once so organized, responsibility for the common life devolves not on all but only on some of the members, principally on its chiefs, gods, and rulers, that is, particular elites.

In periods of rapid social change, the outline of these elites against a shifting background is sharply visible. In periods of relative stability, these elites are merged with the objects, habits, and manners of their age. The timeless, functional aspects of their roles is therefore apparent primarily during periods of social transition or crisis.

Two main perspectives characterize past studies of elites—the moral and the functional. The first concentrates on the moral excellence of individuals, the second on the functional role of a stratum. Both, however, start from the existence of a group of people set apart from the rest by a distinctive set of duties and rewards. One accounts for the existence of elite groups in terms of the superiority of given individuals, the other, in terms of the social function of a class or group. The moral approach easily degenerates into mysticism, the functional approach, into tautology.

In this book we shall attempt to reconcile the two. We shall try to keep the functions of elites separate from the success or failure of individuals in fulfilling these functions.

The concept of elites is particularly useful in clarifying major features of modern industrial societies. It is becoming increasingly evident that these cannot be effectively analyzed with such concepts as ruling class, castes, and aristocracies—although all of these tap a part, as we shall see, of what is meant by elites. Because of the characteristics of industrial societies, the social significance of elites is growing, as is the difference between them and ruling classes. One of the striking trends in these societies is not, as many would suppose, toward a decline of elite groups, but toward their proliferation, greater variety, and more extensive powers. As societies become occupationally and economically more differentiated, elites become ever more important both as guardians and creators of collective values, and as managers of collective aims and ambitions. Men should understand the causes of this great change, for the accompanying impact will transform their own and their children’s lives.

Influential theories of elites

Elites are a fascinating area of study appealing to diverse types of thinkers. The result has been an abundance of insight alongside of a poverty of concepts and theories. There is no substantial agreement on most aspects of the problem, although there are many arguments over terms and intentions. Essential questions as to how many elites there are, why they emerge, and how they survive, are raised in prefatory remarks only to be later ignored. Such writings as do deal with these matters nearly all refer back to Pareto or Mosca as if the mere invoking of these names were enough to insure safe passage across uncharted intellectual territory.

The writers to be dealt with briefly in this chapter are not exhaustive but representative of the best work done on the general question of the relationship between elites and society. These writers fall into two main groups: those selecting a single elite— usually the political elite—as socially decisive, and here Aristotle, Pareto, and Mosca come to mind; and those who insist that a number of elites coexist, sharing power, responsibilities, and rewards. Here belong such writers as Saint-Simon, Karl Mannheim, and Raymond Aron. Despite the variety, not to say the confusion, in the terms and concepts used, each of these writers has added something to the general understanding of the phenomenon, though none has painted the entire canvas.

Aristotle

Aristotle’s purpose in writing the Politics was to halt the decline of the ancient city-state by devising a blueprint for a new and better one. His review of the various constitutions of the Greek city-states was an attempt to discover what type of constitution is best adapted to different historical, social, and moral conditions.

Aristotle concentrated on the nature and purposes both of the state and the men selected to serve it. In his view, the state had a function beyond that of preventing crime or regulating exchange. Like Plato, he saw the state as an instrument designed to fulfill collective ends and to serve communal needs, for the state exists, he stressed, not for the sake of life in general but of the good life.² In order to fulfill its major mission, it needs extraordinary men, men of virtue and excellence, who value justice and the common interest above private gain. Naturally such men must be wealthy because without wealth no man has the leisure to rule well (and, presumably, the state could not pay them adequately).

As a model of how to begin the study of elites this conception serves rather well, provided one does not define Aristotle’s conception of the state too narrowly. His leaders are not merely the political elite but all those whose actions and efforts are oriented to safeguarding and promoting the interests of the community. In this respect they resemble the aggregate of political, economic, moral, and cultural leaders of our own day. But they also remind us of earlier times when a few individuals assumed all or most of these communal responsibilities. In addition, and this is most important, Aristotle approached the entire question of communal leadership from the point of view of the function this leadership served. He did not make the mistake, frequently made by later scholars, of equating the purposes of men seeking to attain positions of leadership with the actual social functions of these positions.

Aristotle also distinguished between general social functions and particular social machinery for fulfilling these functions. In order to achieve such broad communal goals as coordinating conflicting interests, defending territorial boundaries, and allocating rewards and punishments, he reasoned, communities must develop specialized machinery or institutions. The state is an example of such an institution, the government being its dynamic aspect. Whether the state develops into a monarchy, tyranny, or democracy depends on particular social and historical conditions, but that it will assume one of these forms can be predicted from a knowledge of social organization. Irrespective of the form of government that develops, an elite must emerge to carry on the affairs of the state, for elites, Aristotle argued, are more permanent than particular institutional arrangements. The elite of skilled specialists who are at the same time virtuous men should be responsible for the moral and material welfare of the community.

Aristotle thus linked elites to both the moral and material needs of the community. Unlike many later writers, he did not single out one or the other aspect as basic: he conceived of a single group fulfilling both functions. This conception was plausible at a time when the various community functions were still largely undifferentiated. But while Aristotle’s own community differs significantly from modern industrial societies, his insistence that communal leaders have both moral and material responsibilities is one of the guiding ideas of the subsequent analysis in this book.

It is a long historical jump from Aristotle to Saint-Simon. However, these two thinkers exhibit a theoretical affinity in their appreciation of the crucial role played by elites in human society.

Saint-Simon

Nineteenth-century Europe and America produced many Utopian visions of the social order,³ one of which was held by a French nobleman, Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Count of Saint-Simon, who anticipated some of the major developments of modern times and whose interest in elites was lifelong. All of Saint-Simon’s work, most of it published between 1802 and 1825, deals in one way or another with the problem of how industrial society is to be organized, a question that preoccupied many thinkers of the day. The unforeseen changes brought about by the arrival of the machine age had resulted in a series of new social problems pressing for solution.

The social equality anticipated by prophets of the French Revolution was not nearly the panacea that earlier writers had thought it would be; new types of inequalities emerged as rapidly as some of the older ones vanished. This led to a reappraisal of the question of equality in human affairs and to some highly novel theories, one of which formed the basis of Saint-Simon’s theory of elites. Saint-Simon believed that the good society is based upon man’s natural capacities, and these capacities, physiologists had taught him, were highly unequal. Utilizing the classification of individuals developed by Bichat, he divided society into three mutually exclusive social classes which, he argued, perform distinctive social functions.⁴ These three functions, each requiring special personnel, include the planning of social action—the intelligence function; the carrying out of essential industrial work—the motor function; and fulfillment of the spiritual needs of human beings—the sensory function. The members of each class would be functional specialists. Within each class those individuals who naturally excelled others belonged to one of Saint-Simon’s three elites—the scientists, economic organizers, or cultural-religious leaders.

Revolutionary in Saint-Simon’s thought was his anticipation of the crucial importance of industrial producers, an elite group which he viewed as holding a more strategic position in the new social order than had the political leaders of old. In his view, industry and science were to dominate social life and therefore had to be “socialized,” that is, their activities had to be carried out for the public good and under public surveillance. In fact, in industrial society, “politics” would consist of the science of production, and only those who “actively participate in the economic life” would have the right to vote. As Durkheim noted, this view stands in direct contrast to that of the classical economists who sought to keep politics and economics separate.⁵

Another prominent characteristic of Saint-Simon’s work is his preoccupation with the moral regeneration of the new society. Observing the spiritual malaise resulting from the simultaneous pull of the opposing doctrines of feudalism and industrialism, Saint-Simon urged that men must choose one or the other lest the social order itself perish. Industrialism as the force of the future was viewed as an appropriate basis for such regeneration. Industrial organization itself should be perfected, he argued, and all social activities subordinated to industrial activities. Saint-Simon was an advocate of a directed or a managed equilibrium (though he did not use these terms), for to him society was necessarily a hierarchical system, to be supervised by those at the top. At one stage he thought of the leading industrialists themselves as the appropriate supervisors, but later he seemed to favor setting apart a special group of what amounted to high priests preaching the gospel of industrialism. These later exaggerations should not obscure his earlier insights. He understood, perhaps more fully than most later writers, that the problems of social organization are multidimensional, and require not only efficient administrators but also ideals and larger purposes to which these administrators may be committed.

By rejecting the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction to the Original Edition
• 2 Strategic Elites: Historical Antecedents
• 3 Strategic Elites: Concomitant Social Forces
• 4 The Social Functions of Strategic Elites
• 5 The Emergence of Strategic Elites: Selected Cases
• 6 Strategic Elites and the Moral Order
• 7 The Symbolic Role of Strategic Elites
• 8 Recruitment, Responsibilities, and Rewards
• 9 Social Backgrounds and Careers of Selected Elites in the United States
• 10 The Rise and Fall of Strategic Elites
• 11 Elites, Equality, and Freedom
• Appendixes
• Bibliography
• Index