The Iron Law of Elites and the Standards of Political Judgment

Abstract In a time when “elites” come under many cogent critiques and “populism” gives rise to manifold fears, the cohesion and even future of liberal democracy is today in question in ways that it has not been for some time. This essay approaches the issue of our “divided city” by way of an examination of the thinkers of the Italian School—Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto and Roberto Michels. Better known as “the neo-Machiavellians,” they aimed at a rigorously scientific understanding of social composition and change. Central to their findings was the so-called “iron law of oligarchy.” No society, modern democracy included, can escape the reality of the rule of the few. This essay argues that their scientific methodologies and generalized laws necessarily precluded them from understanding the main alternatives of political life and what is essentially at stake in human history. Paradoxically, their perspective ends up being unable to judge the changing relations between elites and peoples. Like many authoritative social sciences in contemporary academe, this theory appears to be intrinsically silent about, or blind to, the contents of human life. Throughout the analysis of the theory of elites, the approach of classical political philosophy is invoked to highlight the modern scientific alternative. This essay is then a contribution to the understanding of the science of the practical realm, the stakes of politics, the articulations of the parts and the whole of human community.