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What’s Wrong with Rule by ‘Elites?’
Part of our contemporary political rhetoric seems to be an objection to something like the “rule of elites.” This objection appears particularly prevalent on what we call the political “right” or the “conservative” side, although it’s possible that it’s more characteristic of libertarians, who are actually on the political left (in my view).
In any event, why would we object to the rule of, or at least leadership by, “elites?” Isn’t this what we should want?
There is a great deal of variation in ability between people. In a country with a representative government, which I certainly prefer, I would like our leaders to be among “the best and the brightest.” I want leaders of exceptional intelligence, ability, and virtue. There are not many people in this category, at least in percentage terms.
Adams and Jefferson discussed this issue, at length, in their correspondence after both of them had retired from public life. They agreed that there existed a “natural aristocracy” among men, with Jefferson sometimes using the term “aristoi” to refer to the truly worthy, and “pseudo-aristoi” to refer to those lacking such talent but treated as such (by birth or other status). As examples, if you’re interested, you can read this letter from Jefferson to Adams on October 28, 1813, and this response from Adams to Jefferson on November 15, 1813.
As an aside, this correspondence seems almost miraculous. Adams was dubbed the “Colossus of Independence” by, well, Jefferson. Jefferson, who authored the Declaration of Independence and submitted it for initial edit to the rest of the Committee of Five given this task — Adams, Ben Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Who served together, under Washington, as our first Vice President and Secretary of State, before becoming bitter political rivals, with Adams defeating Jefferson in the narrow election of 1796, and Jefferson winning the close rematch in 1800.
Adams, who as he died on the 50th anniversary of our independence, as his final words, said “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” Incorrectly, as it turns out, as Jefferson had died earlier that same day. I have to admit that thinking about this sends a shiver down my spine. Divine Providence, indeed.
Back to that natural aristocracy.
Adams and Jefferson were agreed that we should be led by men in that natural aristocracy. The question that they addressed was how to accomplish this. Jefferson wished to trust the people, writing:
May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectual[ly] for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provis[ion] should be made to prevent it’s ascendancy. On the question, What is the best [pro]vision? you and I differ; but we differ as rational friends, using the free exerci[se] of our own reason, and mutually indulging it’s errors. . . .
I think the best remedy is exactly that provided by all our constitutions, to leave to the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo–aristoi, of the wheat from the chaff. In general they will elect the real good and wise. In some instances, wealth may corrupt, and birth blind them; but not in sufficient degree to endanger the society.
Adams was more skeptical of the ability of the people to make wise choices, responding:
You suppose a difference of Opinion between You and me, on this Subject of Aristocracy. I can find none. I dislike and detest hereditary honours, Offices Emoluments established by Law. So do you. I am for excluding legal hereditary distinctions from the U.S. as long as possible. So are you. I only Say that Mankind have not yet discovered any remedy against irresistable Corruption in Elections to Offices of great Power and Profit, but making them hereditary.
But will you Say our Elections are pure? Be it so; upon the whole. But do you recollect in history, a more Corrupt Election than that of Aaron Burr to be President, or that of De Witt Clinton last year. By corruption, here I mean a Sacrifice of every national Interest and honour, to private and party Objects.
Ouch! Adams, who had celebrated his 78th birthday between the writing of these two letters, was still sharp as a needle.
Remember your election, Tom? How Aaron Burr — Aaron Burr — almost beat you out for the Presidency? Burr, who killed our old friend Hamilton — a natural aristoi if ever there was one? Burr, who you had arrested, indicted, and tried for treason, though he beat the charge?
This is our conundrum, isn’t it?
I don’t think that rule by “elites” is the problem. I think the problem is that our current elites are, by and large, an unworthy lot. Lesser sons of great sires. They are chosen by the people, as Jefferson recommended, and this doesn’t seem to be working very well.
Jefferson’s letter included a detailed proposal he had made in Virginia regarding education, which was not adopted. He wrote that the abolition of entails and primogeniture, which he authored and which passed, “laid the axe to the root of Pseudo-aristocracy,” and then continued:
And had another which I prepared been adopted by the legislature, our work would have been compleat. It was a Bill for the more general diffusion [of] learning. This proposed to divide every county into wards of 5. or 6. miles square, like your townships; to establish in each ward a free school for reading, writing and common arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best subjects from these schools who might receive at the public expence a higher degree of education at a district school; and from these district schools to select a certain number of the most promising subjects to be compleated at an University, where all the useful sciences should be taught. Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from every condition of life, and compleatly prepared by education for defeating the competition of wealth & birth for public trusts. . . .
The law for religious freedom, which made a part of this system, having put down the aristocracy of the clergy and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind, and those of entails and descents nurturing an equality of condition among them, this on Education would have raised the mass of the people to the high ground of moral respectability necessary to their own safety, & to orderly government; and would have compleated the great object of qualifying them to select the veritable aristoi, for the trusts of government, to the exclusion of the Pseudalists.
So Jefferson plainly contemplated special, state-funded education of the “best and the brightest,” to prepare them for leadership, and trusted that the more limited education of the masses would qualify them to select the best leaders.
Perhaps this would have worked, perhaps not. My own concern is Jefferson’s confidence in reason, as opposed to faith, for the establishment of moral virtue. I disagree with Jefferson about the proper source of moral teaching, but I do agree about the importance of educating the natural aristocracy to be knowledgeable, virtuous, and wise.
It seems, to me, that we have departed greatly from this ideal in our country. We have democratized education, devaluing it in my view, debasing the curriculum in the name of “equality” — or, perhaps in more recent terminology, “inclusion.” For quite a long time, our public primary and secondary schools seem, to me, to have given little priority to the education of the gifted. Our colleges and universities have lowered their standards for admissions, significantly reduced the number of required courses, and expected little of their students.
Worse yet, far from teaching true, traditional virtue and morality, our entire educational system seems bent on instilling an ethic of shallow selfishness, toleration of all sorts of vice, and pursuit of each individual’s own personal desires and preferences, rather than the common good. This is coupled with a widespread denial of the very existence of any differences in ability.
It seems, to me, that this leads to a new type of pseudo-aristoi. Not the pseudo-aristoi of birth to which Jefferson objected, but a pseudo-aristoi of self-righteous mediocrities. This new pseudo-aristoi are our modern “elites,” indoctrinated in the bizarre mix of libertinism and egalitarianism now labeled “Wokeism.”
There are exceptions here and there, of course, but for the most part, the inmates seem to be running the asylum. At least, it seems this way to me. What do you all think?
In a way, then, it is understandable that people on the political right would object to rule by “elites,” if this is the type of “elite” that we have. But I don’t think that we should reject the ideal of the leadership of the natural aristocracy.
I think that we need to find a way to do a better job of identifying them, and educating them. Though I have difficulty finding any reason for optimism that we can do so, given our current political climate.
Published in Education
A ruling “elite” needs to maintain a connection with, and understanding of, the “normals.” Today’s “elites” seem to many as so disconnected from the “normals” that they don’t see nor understand the concerns that the “normals” have.
You start out very nearly confirming the end of your journey to Christian Socialist, but salvage a bit at the end.
I won’t remind you of what you have certainly read, but to say that conservatives desire from government (particularly in the Executive) not rulership but stewardship. What Jefferson described is what we have today, a with government-controlled school pipeline flowing to school-controlled government.
While the theoretical distinction between Aristoi and Pseudo-aristoi makes sense, in practice it’s just two camps committing and accusing “No True Scot.”
What, Precisely, is the Issue with “Elites”?
Excellent!
Who defines “elite”? How do we ensure the validity of the definition? How do we ensure the integrity of the elite even should the definition of “elite” be valid?
Throughout history rule of the elite has degenerated into a corrupt ruling class more intent on maintaing their own privileges and passing those privileges to their descendents than in maintaining standards for being in the elite class.
Other than that, I see nothing wrong with rule by the elite. One thing I have noticed is those advocating rule by the elite always define elite so they are numbered among the elite.
Funny that.
Besides the elites themselves, you mean?
We are not to be “ruled” by anyone. The ones we elect are supposed to represent, not rule.
The other point I’d make is that there are very few elites around these days, at least not among the crew I see almost every day bloviating from Washington and other world capitals.
As far as rule by “elites” you stated:
“Adams and Jefferson discussed this issue, at length, in their correspondence after both of them had retired from public life. They agreed there existed a “natural aristocracy” among men, with Jefferson sometimes using the term “aristoi” to refer to the truly worthy, and “pseudo-aristoi” to refer to those lacking such talent but treated as such (by birth or other status).”
If these statements were in reference to a historical accounting of the beliefs of these two US founders, I would have nothing but applause for your making them.
But in talking about the elites ruling the USA, I can only assume that you are meaning in the here and now.
So in that particular framework, the elites are not people who care one bit about local control, or even national control.
The elites of today are globalists who have been carefully vetted by the UN, The WHO, The IMF, The World Bank, Bilderbergers, Council on Foreign Relations, and other ngo’s.
The closest we might come to seeing any “real” Americans being involved in the process would be to understand these facts:
One) that our Dept of Defense is a major component of the same driving philosophies as the above.
Two) as are Bill Gates and the Biden Administration. (After all, Gates and the USA are the top two donors to The WHO, now that Biden has re-instated our “donations” to The WHO after Trump had wisely stopped our money going to them.)
All of these entities and all the people behind these entities are determined to fully de-construct what has passed for American sovereignty for the last 247 years.
One of the UN’s most important goals is to flip the predominant ethnic patterns of Western societies from fully informed citizens who were born and bred inside those nations’ boundaries to polyglot borderless nations that support on the One World Government.
In its mission statement as portrayed on its webpage for the UN commission on immigration, it is stated that the goal is to have 350 million refugees who have been thwarted in their own nations by poverty, unemployment, climate crisis catastrophes and war, arrive inside Western societies where they will be assimilated into that society.
To use the word “assimilation” is a misnomer, as in every case where new people arrive, let’s say from Somalia, as has happened in Minnesota, the people who are native to that region must no longer express their culture’s Christian/Judeo religions or holiday festivities, as these would make the newcomers feel out of sorts.
But the newcomers are allowed to demand that their religion and customs be observed.
So now we have a situation where in parts of England, the Muslim adherents demand that Sharia law laws/regulations be on the ballot so that vast numbers of new arrivals can vote Sharia law into the culture and society that they did not even belong to 25 yrs ago!
Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters. – C.S. Lewis
They really are unimpressive individuals, aren’t they?
Today’s hearing on the Twitter files revealed quite a few malevolent dummies.
I’m confused about this. The second sentence essentially answers the question posed in your header. Furthermore, it underscores that rule by “elites” is a problem when those elites prove themselves to be unworthy. That is a problem with today’s societal selection of elites.
”Elite” is a product of the Latin word for “elect.” It is intended to focus on those who show themselves to be worthy of being leaders through the personal qualities they demonstrate. Unfortunately, many of our “elites” rise to elite status by ways not necessarily consistent with the values that were prized in Rome or throughout much of history. They are unworthy elites, which is what’s wrong.
In this country, the elites would have to be consented to by those they would govern (the only just form of government according to the Declaration of Independence), would have to view their role as securing the rights of the people (also the Declaration of Independence) and would have to embrace the view that the rights of the people, which originate with their maker, are superior to the machinations of the state.
There may have been a time when this was possible but I think we don’t live in such a time. Even if we could identify “elites”, we do not live in a society that loves and pursues virtue by and large.
I think the objection to “rule by experts” (which some people think means “elites” but I doubt that is what you’re saying) is rooted in the political unaccountability of experts as things have been arranged through congressional dereliction of many years making. No one has consented to be government by the permanent bureaucracy. The regulatory stranglehold of unelected “experts” in our time is an abomination to both the founders and the documents they wrote.
Lastly, there is a vast difference between expertise of the technical sort and prudential wisdom. In some ways they’re almost polar opposites. Or, at least, they’re not the same kind of thing at all. But technical experts neither accept nor remotely understand the distinction, believing as they’ve been taught, that their technical cleverness is a sign of both intellectual and moral superiority.
Define “Elites”.
Is that people from Harvard , Princeton and the wokest of woke universities? Is it people born into rich families who have little understanding as to what it takes to create wealth? Sure we can say we want the best and the brightest, but I have seen some of the people who are considered elite.
For the Supreme Court, yes I want elite Constitutional scholars. For the House of Representatives, I want people who represent their districts.
Pretty sure the Soviet Union was run by their elites.
Thanks, David. I think that there are some good points in this, though overall, I don’t think that it captures the principal problem. Some of it reminds me of a point that Charles Murray has made, essentially that our culture has adopted a disdain for people who are not highly educated. I agree with this point.
I disagree with the point about the disproportionate role of lawyers in our political process. Most of politics is about law. Lawyers are the people trained in the law, so it seems natural to find a lot of lawyers in all three branches of government, just as you’d expect to find medical doctors in a hospital and mechanics at a car repair shop. Apropos to the OP, Adams and Jefferson were both lawyers — as were Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, and on and on.
For full disclosure, I guess that I have to admit that Burr was also a lawyer. Obviously, being a lawyer is no guarantee of virtue. It is an understandable and important qualification for government service, though there should be some non-lawyers involved, as well, Washington being the best single example of this.
I think that part of your linked article agrees with something that I wrote, in part. The article says:
I agree with the observation about educational credentials having fairly low predictive power concerning ability. The principal cause of this, I think, is the debasement of education that I noted in the OP.
The part contrasting school-based knowledge with practical experience is a false dichotomy, I think. I want to see both — that is, that we be led by people who are well-educated and who then go on to prove themselves in practical life. Jefferson’s letter actually discussed this, though I omitted that part for reasons of space. He didn’t use the term, but I think that he was referring to something like the Roman cursus honorum — course of honors — of moving up the ranks of important offices, gaining experience on the way, and being promoted for demonstrated competence.
Thanks for the link.
I think that this is wrong. We are ruled by our elected officials. They make the laws, enforce the laws, and interpret the laws.
Without rule, there is no government. We end up with anarchism.
We are to the point of degeneration where elections don’t matter. It is the permanent bureaucracy that will remain in charge. Our permanent bureaucracy will take out anyone who stands in their way. Eisenhower warned about it in his Military Industrial Complex speech. But note that he didn’t deliver it until the end of his term – he didn’t want the Dulles brothers taking him out. Then there was Kennedy. Then Nixon. Then Trump.
How did this happen? It started with Walter Lipman and his writings in the 1920s but came to real fruition with World War II and the victory in that war. For a while, it worked. But it no longer does.
When elites demonstrate time and again their hubris, their incompetence, their fundamental stupidity, and their contempt for everyone else, I personally look forward to their defeat – which will occur on a battlefield by another power because that is the only thing that can stop them. They are laying the foundations of their defeat in the Ukraine and the decade of stupid policy there.
Cannot like.
This is the conundrum that Adams and Jefferson discussed. Jefferson’s hope was that the people could be sufficiently educated to make the selection.
At the start of the Adams letter linked in the OP, he stated their agreement that there was a proper “elite” — the “natural Aristocracy” — and stated that “the grounds of which are Virtue and Talent.” Of course, there are different opinions about Virtue.
By “Virtue,” I think that at least Adams meant Christian virtue. This is based on his statement in another letter — not to Jefferson — that: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” By religious, he meant Christian. I do suspect that Jefferson would have disagreed about this.
On your last point — I do seem to be defining “elite” here, or at least I’m agreeing with Adams and Jefferson. So, do I think that I’m numbered among the elite? I’m confident that I have the “Talent,” based on past accomplishments, but am uncertain about whether I have the “Virtue.” I’d like to have such virtue.
A couple of “ship” words have come up which need to be remembered in this discussion, they are leadership and stewardship. But they are hardly the answer by themselves. I prefer to abandon the term “elites” altogether and let it apply only to those who seem so eager to claim it for themselves, or at least, assume it without having it given by their peers.
The key factor for those we entrust with either leadership or stewardship is merit – as determined by us. We have had enough problems with the lines of our consent to such things of late! That test of merit is a constant affair and that is on us to demand it and to practice it. The more open the gate is for all to advance on merit and the more constant the evaluation of those entrusted with power (temporary power easily withdrawn), the more likely we are to find that there are more “elites” among us than many would have guessed. If not, we have at least made it harder to grow tyranny.
Maybe. If our government collapsed, we’d probably fall back to local rule, with every orgzone having its own forms of government. We’d have feudal systems. We’d have ruling families. We’d other have voluntary associations. Naturally these, too, would eventually collapse, since human sin nature always gets in the way. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
I wouldn’t automatically assume anarchism is bad given some of the alternatives. If living under an authoritarian dictatorship or whatever one might conceive of as the absolute worst form of government, would not anarchism be an improvement?
I agree with this, wholeheartedly.
I don’t think that I suffer from this problem, though perhaps I’m not an “elite” myself. I probably am, in a minor way, being a lawyer and all.
I noted Charles Murray in one of my earlier comments, and this has been another of his arguments with which I agree strongly. This was a major theme of his book Coming Apart.
Have you ever taken his “bubble quiz”? You can take it online here. I just took it — it was an updated version, a bit different from the one that I remember about 10 years ago. I got a 53, which is pretty good in terms of not being in a bubble — at least for a lawyer, who’s the son of a medical doctor and the grandson of a dentist.
What do you mean by “Christian Socialist”?
When I read the Wikipedia entry about “Christian socialism,” here, it doesn’t describe me at all. I’m not a socialist, not a fan of “left-wing politics,” and I support capitalism, though not unfettered Randian capitalism. Maybe you mean something different.
No to your final question. It seems that you note this in your first paragraph here.
I could like living under a dictatorship, with the right kind of dictator. I do not think that dictatorship is a good idea. I don’t find the use of the term “authoritarian” to be meaningful in any way, as it generally seems to be used as an epithet to describe any government imposing any law that the person using the word “authoritarian” doesn’t personally like.
I have come to doubt the existence of elites as such.
Elites, much like ‘intellectuals’ are snake oil salesmen with a good marketing department.
Ruled or governed requires some definition. Elites also requires some definition. I don’t care to be ruled by the elite participants that meet at Davos and come to think of it I don’t care to be governed by them as well.
The key word being “supposed to.”
Our actual form of Government is autocratic and authoritarian.
Authoritarian is meaningless, as far as I can tell, in current usage. It just seems to be used as an epithet for “something I don’t like.”
An “autocrat” is a dictator, a single ruler. Our system is certainly not that.
Actually analyzing and describing the problem with our current government, and society, is difficult. Inaccurate use of terms detracts from this effort, I think.
Yup. The problem is our elites aren’t elite. They’re morons who suck big time. Our elites should resemble Batman. Selfless people who would go to any extreme to help the people and our way of life. Our elites today resemble the Borgias. Corrupt awful and depraved people who think their own personal sphere of influence and growing it is what matters.
William F. Buckley who could be considered part of the elite summed it up rather well: