The concepts of “the elites” and “ruling class” get thrown around a great deal on the Outer Right to the point that their meaning has become opaque. This very short primer seeks to clarify what is meant in neoreactionary thought by these terms, what ideas they signify, and how to properly articulate the theory involved in neoreaction’s challenge to the current elites of Western Civilization, especially those involved in the network known as the Cathedral.
To begin, the word “elite” signifies a class of individuals significantly above average. Society is ironically full of elites. Elite status merely signifies capacity and does not necessarily imply that a specific person has authority or power. Most great political struggles of history are struggles between organized classes of elites, both of whom have the capacity to lead society but cannot, for some reason, cooperate in its leadership. An example of this notion is the struggle during the Renaissance between feudal and bourgeoisie elites. Both groups were full of exceptional individuals who stood above the bulk of society in their capacity to exercise authority and lead their countries. The fact that in many cases the bourgeoisie were not leaders of their societies did not mean that they were not elites, only that they were not members of their particular community’s ruling class.
The ruling class, on the other hand, is a group of elites who exercise control over society. The ruling class is defined by the fact that the state and major institutions of society ultimate answer to this group of people. Control of the state and non-state institutions can be exercised in numerous ways, including proprietorial ownership, regulatory authority, and violent acquisition. For example, in a capitalist regime, the major corporations (non-state institutions) are owned by the bourgeoisie, while in a managerial regime, the national bureaucracy owns the institutions of state while it regulates non-state institutions.
In nearly all regimes, the class which controls the state can acquire assets of those they oppose by force through the taxation and enforcement arms of government. It should be noted that these three means of control are not mutually exclusive but in fact are highly complementary. When you have a situation where the owners of institutions are also in charge of regulating those institutions, such as the alliance between public-sector managers and private-sector managers in the United States government, the control the ruling (managerial) class exercises is greatly enhanced.
It is not sufficient for elites to merely control institutions or even branches of government. The person who controls the Boy Scouts of America or Department of Motor Vehicles is not necessarily a member of the ruling class, though it also often depends how secure their position is. This phrase needs to be broken in half first, so that the question becomes, “What does it mean to rule,” and “What is a class?” A class, to be brief, is a group connected through a shared interest and common fate. In order that a social class should be cohesive, their aims must be complimentary and their demise must be mutual. Any attempt to articulate a class consciousness which lacks these two features is doomed to failure. It will either fracture under internal competition or divide along the unshared vulnerability of part of its membership. It’s hard to imagine a stable class which includes farmers and ranchers, as their interests are irreconcilable. Likewise, there can never be a stable class including homeowners and renters, as homeowners will defect on the question of rent controls, while renters will defect on questions of property taxes, as neither group will suffer for betraying the cause of their compatriots.
To use a more pertinent example, conservative fusionism is an artificial class doomed to failure. There is no such thing as a fusionist conservative because without the glue of anti-communism, there is no incentive for two of the three factions to refrain from defecting against the third. The betrayal of social conservatives over the last two decades serves as a perfect example of how no class can exist without a common fate.
James Burnham gives a tentative answer as to what it means to rule. He defines a ruling class as possessing the following three traits: they control, via ownership or regulation, the fruits of social production, the means of employment, and a disproportionate share of the public goods. By this, he meant that a ruling class must have the power to distribute the GDP of society, determine who shall be employed and where, and be wealthy, though not necessarily in the sense of the old Gilded Age fortunes.
As far as early 20th Century answers go, this is by far one of the best, though tilted obviously toward a worldview formed through a Marxist education. Burnham is writing from the beginning of the managerial age, and this is perhaps the apex of managerial power; the fall of the Soviet Union serves as the Battle of Zama for the forces of managerial neoliberalism, both the lofty peak of their regime and the point from which it declines. For example, what does “the means of production” mean for a FIRE-economy? When wealth production is not a product of manufacturing but of financial instruments which grow on the basis of speculation and expectations of future growth, who can “control” the institutions which generate profits?
One of the things which make these kinds of 20th century works seem so dated to the modern reader is that the character of managerial control has changed beyond what could be foreseen from the days of the industrial economy when labor meant organized, industrial workers rather than name-tag wearing baristas and retail clerks. Nevertheless, there is a truth within this definition that needs to be drawn out from its obsolete economic context. What was the 2008-09 bailout controversy except an action by the ruling class to solidify control over the productive [sic] elements of the economy? It was an attempt to preserve value in assets owned or controlled by members of the ruling class. While the old context of socialism, which assumed control over a manufacturing base by either nationalization or the regulatory state, is dead, the core element of a ruling class exercising control over the institutions of national wealth remains valid. The National Industrial Recovery Act may have been the old means of control which no longer holds, but it has not gone without replacement in the form of the SEC, Federal Reserve, and other government regulatory bodies through which the ruling class maintains a stranglehold on the national economy.
Can it be argued that the federal bureaucracy does not control which corporations thrive and which falter in the modern economy? Is there a correlation to corporate success greater than political favoritism? Could the great Silicon Valley fortunes have been built without the benign neglect and favorable regulatory atmosphere generated by the managerial elites of the American bureaucracy? The answers to these questions are clear; the American economy may no longer be a production economy, but it is no less controlled and regulated by a ruling class. With slight modification, Burnham’s first attribute holds true. A ruling class must maintain control, partially through ownership but primarily through state regulation, of the major wealth-generating institutions of society.
The second means of control is the control of employment. Once again, Burnham’s description of this is obsolete and requires investigation. Burnham predicted national, compulsory union membership, while union membership today is at a historic low. Does this mean that the ruling class of the United States does not maintain control over employment?
Under a populist regime, which lacked a ruling class, one would find employment decisions resting exclusively in the hands of the person with the authority to hire, either the owner or hiring manager. In this case, the employer would have unimpeded judgment and make decisions in accordance with that person’s own interests. If the employer wished to hire a pretty girl for his front desk, or keep an all-male office to reduce office drama and reduce incidents of office romance, that would be within his authority. Is this the state of the American job market? Of course, it is not. The American job market is one of the most highly regulated areas of the American economy, controlled by the managers and bureaucrats who run the parallel institutions of public regulatory offices and corporate human resources offices.
Control is not necessarily absolute command. Control in the sense being used here is the ability to make outcomes in the aggregate conform to the desires of the regulatory body. Do the outcomes of American employment by and large conform to the desires of the managerial elites in the various federal departments and courts which manage employment law? Is Infosys 97% South Asian and the American civil service disproportionately African-American? Is it possible for avowed racists and other professed ideological dissidents to find employment in high-status corporate offices or elite universities? Is it possible for extremely low-status individuals such as non-college-educated blue-collar rural whites to find sufficient employment at all, observing this question from the aggregate?
This prong of Burnham’s test largely survives intact, as the ruling class of the United States maintain a stranglehold on employment, and the use of the tactics of disemployment by the Left against ideological dissenters demonstrates that they understand their power in this area to be nearly absolute.
The last prong of Burnham’s test seems to be the weakest, though perhaps it can be rehabilitated in a way. Burnham argues that a ruling class can be identified through their disproportionate share in the public goods, namely their wealth. Certainly, wealth alone is not enough and Burnham admits this. The old ruling classes often retain a great deal of wealth long past their actual potency and retain it by becoming a decadent rentier class. Just as the old aristocrats retained wealth and privilege long into the age of capitalism, so too do the heirs of the old Gilded Age fortunes retain their ancestors’ wealth, though they lack the acumen and influence of old Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, or Carnegie.
The real test is that membership in the ruling class should be the exclusive source of new wealth, rather than wealth itself. In this, Burnham’s definition seems to flounder. Men like Gates, Jobs, and Zuckerberg have built great fortunes, despite the fact that they are servants to higher powers, rather than powerbrokers themselves. When Rockefeller spoke, Congress listened.
To salvage this prong of the test, the definition of “public goods” must be taken in an entirely new sense, far broader than the old conception of wealth alone. Public peace is a public good. The ability to go home without fear of violence is a public good. The ability to send one’s children to a quality educational institution is a public good. The ability to demand and receive the attention of the formal institutions of power is a public good. To have government react to your preferences is a public good.
The ruling class lives in places where public safety is a given. Elites part of this class do not worry about their homes being burgled or their families mugged. Ruling class members know their children will receive preferential treatment when it comes to educational opportunities. All of these are above and beyond the basic benefits of wealth. Where the wealthy can purchase this kind of treatment, for the ruling class it is a perk of the job. A wealthy man can get his child into Harvard with a large donation, but a member of the ruling class can do the same thing with a phone call. A wealthy man can buy a congressman, but a member of the ruling class can rely on the fact that Congress represents his interests.
Mark Zuckerberg is about 60 times wealthier than Lloyd Blankfein. He is certainly more famous. If Zuckerberg and Blankfein marched into the offices of congressional leadership, for which man would they immediately draft legislation? It should be clear from this example that Blankfein is a member of the ruling class while Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and many of the wealthy Silicon Valley elite are not. To use Burnham’s terminology, Zuckerberg and Gates are technocrats, members of a class which does not and largely lacks the capacity to rule. Blankfein is a finance-capitalist, one of the groups which uneasily coexists within the managerial class, which consists of the incestuous blend of public sector bureaucrats, corporate elites, intellectuals, and media figures. The trick to identifying a true member of the managerial ruling class is to find a person who seamlessly glides between high corporate positions, the judicial and executive branches (especially positions requiring Senate confirmation), academia, and the media.
To conclude, the anchor on Channel 3, Professor Smith at City College, John the CFO of a corporation with 10 employees, and Sally the DMV clerk are not elites, nor are they members of the ruling class. Further research and study of the American regime requires more than 140-character blurbs, it requires insightful analysis and observation of how the ruling class actually operate.