What’s elite theory?
Discussion
I was wondering the same 😅 Theory that elites are running the show behind the scenes of politicians? Yup, factual.
It’s less so conspiracy theory and moreso analysis showing that in all societies - democratic or not - power naturally concentrates in small groups through organisational advantages, specialised knowledge, and network effects.
Think “the purpose of a system is what it does” for social and political power.
Accurate. This is why "utopias" can never succeed. Someone will always seek more power.
Correct. Which is why it interests me, ancaps accept natural hierarchies will always exist but then have no good answer for power vacuums even though they’ll be the first to point out what happens if you take out a Saddam or Gaddafi or a Mexican cartel.
Bitcoin is the first genuine threat to establishment elites in forever, so I want to know how these dynamics work and how power might shift.
Sociological & political concept that power always tends to concentrate in the hands of a few elites.
Vilfredo Pareto (of Pareto Principal 80/20 fame), Gaetano Mosca who wrote about small organised groups exercising power, Robert Michels who wrote about the Iron Law of Oligarchy, and James Burnham who synthesised it with the Managerial Revolution and our understanding of what we now call the Deep State.
You could say it’s about how power actually works rather than how people think it works, interesting if you’re familiar with ancap ideas about natural voluntary hierarchies.
An academic agent fan? Maybe lol
Yep 👍