Power and the Elite

It was their contention...that the number of those with a share in the government should be limited to 5000, and that these should be the people best equipped to serve the state either in their own proper persons or with their resources. (Thucydides VIII 65, 3)

Let us choose a certain number of the best men in the country, and set the power in their hands. It is only natural to suppose that the best men will produce the best policies. (Herodotus III 81 - reporting the advice of the Persian noble Megabyzus to King Darius of Persia).

In contemplating revolutions, it is easy to perceive that they may arise from two distinct causes - the one to avoid or get rid of some great calamity, the other to obtain some great and positive good. (Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man)

He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well-governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favourable hearers. (Richard Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity I)

Men are made by nature unequal. It is vain therefore to treat them as if they were equal. (J.A.Froude, Party Politics)

'We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal' but who is this 'We'?

“The last chapter dealt with power in the hands of the majority, power in the actual possession of a democracy, and with the nature and character of its exercise. This time we turn to the problems of a minority without power, an elite who thought of themselves as aristocrats and whose critics and enemies preferred to think of them as oligarchs. because of the stimulus to acquisition which, as we have seen, is characteristic of power, it is not only natural that those who have it should seek to acquire more; it is natural also that those without it should seek to acquire it, and it is natural further, that they should regard the obtaining of it not as a manifestation of ingrained ambition, of the pleonexia which we identified as inherent in mankind, but as the rectification of an injustice. Such an attempt at the acquisition of power forms one of the principal features of Thucydides' final book, when the changed circumstances of the Athenians, after the disaster in Sicily, had produced a crisis of confidence in the Athenian democracy. That the attempt was unsuccessful and comparatively short-lived in no way detracts from the value of a study of its motivation and execution.

“In undertaking the study I recognise that the oligarchic  movement of 411 BC has in general received from [posterity what we should nowadays term ' bad press'. This is to some degree enhanced by our inability to appreciate its inspiration - and I use the word 'appreciate' in its fundamental sense. Born and bred as we are in a democratic society, we are unlikely to commend the objectives of those who conspired to overthrow one. We are liable to find their methods as repugnant as their aims, and most of all we cannot profess, or would nowadays find it inexpedient to profess, any sympathy with their principles. But the historian cannot properly fulfil his function unless he is prepared , to the best of his ability, to enter into the circumstances with which he is dealing, to participate in the scene and, in the deepest significance of sympathy, to feel with those whose thoughts and actions he is examining. We must therefore be strict with ourselves in divesting ourselves of our ingrained or preconceived political attitudes, and in assessing what the Athenian oligarchs attempted to do with all the fellow-feeling for them that we can muster.

No equality nonsense for Plato!

“Our chief difficulty is that the idea that the government should remain exclusively in the hands of those best qualified to govern is now at a discount. It is a logical concept that the art of administration demands certain qualities of mind just as the practice of medicine or any other skill. It is reasonable that a proper education in affairs, a good standard of knowledge and intelligence, alone can and should qualify a man to have a voice in the government of his country. Government based on ignorance, and votes prompted by irrationality and emotion, must on any unbiased analysis be ultimately harmful to a country's or a city's interests. Plato more than once attacks the folly of government carried on by the majority vote of ignorant amateurs. There is a famous passage on the subject from the Protagoras, and it may serve the present purpose to quote another, no less famous, from the Gorgias. Socrates argues, 'When the citizens meet to appoint medical officers or ship-builders or any other class of professional, surely it won't be the orator (i.e., the politician) who advises them then. Obviously in every such election the choice ought to fall on the most expert ... and it is expert advice that will be called.' Gorgias argues that the orator's skill in speaking is so persuasive that it can outweigh the professional. But Socrates elicits a damaging admission from him - that the persuasion will be effective only before a popular audience. 'So when the orator is more convincing than the doctor', says Socrates, 'what happens is that an ignorant person is more convincing than the expert before an equally ignorant audience.'

'We hold these truths to be self-evident'' Who is 'We'?

“On this basis Plato would, without doubt, condemn the British and American systems wholeheartedly. Because we cannot govern by means of a sovereign assembly of all the citizens meeting in one place, we have to delegate the authority to govern to our representatives - to people, what is more, who want to represent us and to govern. Now voluntarily to place power in the hands of those who actively seek it, and who flatter and cajole us in order to get it, is to Plato supreme folly. According to him, only those should be trusted to rule who do not want to do so, and who have to be compelled against their will to undertake the task. What is more, in electing our representatives we also act on the principle, which we have elevated into a graven image before which all good democrats must bow, that every man should have an equal voice and an equal vote - as if all men had an equal capacity to judge the rights and wrongs of the situation, the needs of the country, the qualities of the candidate, and so forth, and as though all had an equal stake in the result. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident;, begins the American declaration of Independence, 'that all men are created equal...' Thomas Jefferson, whose thought lies behind these words, has much to answer for to posterity. The sentiments of Froude, whose words are included among the quotations which preface this chapter, accord better with the facts. What is more, those with greater capacities and better understanding customarily fulfil in society positions of greater responsibility and are expected to assume greater burdens. Yet their voice in government is not commensurate with their responsibilities any more than it is commensurate with their merits; and although they deserve greater privileges in life because of their greater burdens, the very word 'privilege' is denounced as as symbol of inequality, nay of immorality, in a democratic context. The idea that a man should be suitably rewarded for his exertions, whether financially or in status or both, is overwhelmed, despite its essential logic, by the irrationality of an egalitarianism itself based on a false premise.'"

'Men are made by nature unequal'.J.A. Froude

So what view do you take on this issue? Is everyone equal? If not, what role should be given to different sections of society? Is there an adequate or acceptable compromise? Or should we abandon our big-city lives and seek out an egalitarian commune? Remind me to tell you about one I visited in Nuremberg many years ago. It was quite a thoroughgoing, totally Germanic solution!