ARE ELITE THEORISTS CLOSET FASCISTS?

Since university, I’ve had a fascination with elite theories espoused a hundred years ago by the Italians Gaetono Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto and the German Robert  Michels. But I discovered today that the latest exponent of elite theory, one Neema Parvini, is a right-wing activist academic who has, however, written two useful-looking books - 

• The Populist Delusion  Neema Parvini (2022) which argues that It has at its 

core a thesis, which absolutely contradicts the democratic or populist delusion, that the 

people are or ever could be sovereign. An organised minority always rules over the 
majority. Perhaps as a testament to that fact, a recent empirical study showed that 
public opinion has a near-zero impact on law-making in the USA across 1,779 policy 
issues. In fact, my thesis goes further than that to suggest that all social change at 
all times and in all places has been top-down and driven by elites rather than ‘the 
people’. Those movements which have the appearance of being organic and bottom-up protests—for example, the 1960s Civil Rights movement in the USA or the Russian 
Revolutions of 1917—were, in fact, tightly organised and funded by elites. Those 
attempts to drive change from the ‘bottom-up’, which is to say, in the absence of elite 
organisation—we might think of the events of 6th January 2020 in Washington DC or 
the recent Yellow Vest movement in France—will amount to little more than an inchoate rabble.

• The Prophets of Doom Neema Parvini (2023) which identifies 11 elite theorists 

or “prophets of doom”, not just the 3 indicated in the opening sentence 

but 8 others

Clearly Machiavelli has a lot to answer for – with various authors such as Wells, 

Burnham, Jay, Lord and Powell all impatient to get into the act

Further Reading

• The Prince Machiavelli (1514)

• The New Machiavelli HG Wells (1921) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Machiavelli

• The Managerial Revolution – or how the world is now James Burnham (1942)

• The Machiavellians – defenders of freedom James Burnham (1943)

• Management and Machiavelli Anthony Jay (1967)

• The Prince https://www.librarything.com/topic/361297 Folio edition (1988)

• The Modern Prince – what leaders need to know now Carnes Lord (2003)

• The New Machiavelli – how to wield power in the modern world Jonathan Powell (2010)

• The State – theories and issues ed Colin Hay et al (2005/2022)

• The Populist Delusion Neema Parvini (2022) with this useful review and summary

• The Prophets of Doom Neema Parvini (2023)