One of the central issues bothering the elite a century ago was that of how “the masses” might be “controlled” in the “new age of democracy”….Writers such as Walter Lippmann (Public Opinion 1922) and Ortego y Gasset (Revolt of the Masses 1930) conjured up frightening narratives about the dangers of the great unwashed masses. Lippmann’s full book can be read here…
The scintillating prose of Joseph Schumpeter’s (1883-1950) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1943) was a favourite of mine at University – with his theory of the “circulation of the elites” reassuring the elites of the post-war period that all would be well….
Of course the rebellious 60s got them worried – but a combination of the Trilateral Commission’s 1975 report on The Crisis of Democracy and, as Perry Anderson has recently and very usefully reminded us, the European Commission soon saw the plebs off......
But the populism evident since the start of
the new millennium has sparked new anxieties about the masses amongst the
liberal elites – and indeed raised the question anew as to whether
capitalism is consistent with democracy…
One guy whose words are worth reading on that question is SM Wolin – whose book on the history of political thought - Politics and Vision - held me spellbound in the 1960s. In his 90s he produced this great critique of the US system – Democracy Inc – managed democracy and the specter of inverted totalitarianism (2008). And this is an interesting recent article, Why Elites always Rule which reminds the new generation of the significance of Pareto’s work…..
In
1941 James Burnham produced his magisterial “The Managerial Revolution” against
which George Orwell wrote in 1946 a devastating essay Second
thoughts on James Burnham. Orwell clearly had some agreement with Burnham
about the oligarchic direction in which political forces were pushing society
and faulted Burnham more for his fatalistic assessment of the probability of
Nazi success.
Not
so well known was Burnham’s next book The Machiavellians – defenders of
freedom (1943) which examined the
work of such theorists as Mosca, Pareto and Sorel
And also forgotten is a book he produced in 1964 - by which time he had turned from the fiery radical and "friend" of Trotsky to a full-blown liberal - Suicide of the West
That sort of title has become a fairly
common theme this past decade or so. In these myopic times, a bit of respect
for long-dead writers is overdue!
