Comment: Theory of circulation of elites. (1992, 20 Marks)
The circulation of elites is Vilfredo Pareto‘s account of political change, set out in the Trattato di sociologia generale (1916; English The Mind and Society, 1935). Its claim is that ruling minorities never vanish, they only replace one another, so history is a graveyard of aristocracies. Written against Marx, it explains change without promising mass rule.
The Theory Stated
- Elite and mass. The elite are those scoring highest in any field. It divides into a governing elite, which shares in rule, and a non-governing elite of able people outside power.
- Residues. Action flows from fairly constant sentiments, the residues, dressed up in rationalisations Pareto called derivations. Two classes matter politically:
- Class I, the instinct for combinations, produces foxes: cunning, inventive, ruling by manipulation, bargaining and persuasion (the speculators of economic life).
- Class II, the persistence of aggregates, produces lions: loyal to faith, nation and order, ruling by force (the rentiers).
- Decay and replacement. A governing elite recruits mostly its own type. A fox elite grows humanitarian and loses the nerve to use force; a lion elite cannot adapt. Meanwhile able people with the missing qualities pile up below.
- Two modes of circulation. Individual circulation absorbs talent from below and renews the elite peacefully. When it is blocked, collective circulation follows: a counter-elite leads the masses and overthrows the old elite by revolution. The masses are the means of this replacement, never its beneficiaries.
Pareto, Mosca and Michels
| Pareto | Mosca | Michels | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basis of elite power | Psychological qualities (residues) | Organisation of a minority | Technical needs of organisation |
| Legitimation | Derivations | Political formula | Leaders’ expertise and mass deference |
| Change | Cyclical circulation | New social forces enter the ruling class | Leaders change, oligarchy stays |
Gaetano Mosca (Elementi di scienza politica, 1896) was less fatalistic: he allowed a “democratic tendency” to renew the ruling class from below. Robert Michels (Political Parties, 1911) shifted attention from society to the party, where the iron law of oligarchy closes the circle.
Critiques
- Marxist. Power follows ownership of the means of production, not psychology. Ralph Miliband (The State in Capitalist Society, 1969) showed how capitalist interests shape the state whichever group holds office, so a change of personnel leaves the class order intact.
- Pluralist. Robert A. Dahl (Who Governs?, 1961) found different minorities winning on different issues in New Haven, with no single elite, and Raymond Aron found liberty in divided, competing elites. Circulation, on this view, is continuous and institutional, not cyclical.
- Methodological. T. B. Bottomore (Elites and Society, 1964) called the residues vague and untestable. Because an elite is identified only by its success, the theory cannot be falsified.
- Democratic reinterpretation. Joseph A. Schumpeter (1942) turned circulation into regular electoral competition — peaceful replacement as the core of democracy.
An Indian Illustration
The Congress system of the 1950s, led by an English-educated, largely upper-caste professional elite, survived by absorbing rising agrarian leaders into its district and state units, which is Pareto’s individual circulation. When absorption slowed, Charan Singh broke away in 1967 and the intermediate peasant castes took power in several states. This was collective replacement, through the ballot rather than revolution.
Conclusion
The theory is right that democracies do not abolish elites and that elites which stop recruiting fall. Its psychological determinism and contempt for the masses are its weaknesses. Elections have turned Pareto’s violent cycle into a regular, peaceful one, and the openness of recruitment, not the existence of an elite, is the democratic test.