Circulation of Elites

An expression of the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto to designate the process by which elites are renewed, new blood brought in, and incompetence shed.

A people that does not renew its elites sinks into a ‘blocked society’. A sclerosis of the elites is a very French malady, for in France the privilege of acquired advantage has always kept good company with a paralysing egalitarianism. Both before and after the Revolution. . . The circulation of elites requires a principle of rigorously selecting the best and most deserving, in a word, it’s an ‘intelligent inegalitarianism’ founded on justice. The selection of elites, like the notion of aristocracy, is based on principles of freedom and competition: ‘The best wins’. Social egalitarianism rejects the principle of selection (the great legacy of May 1968) and instead favours ‘positive discrimination’ and quotas for ethnic groups, which leads not to social justice, but to the promotion of mediocrity.

For thirty years, our system of national education has abandoned principles of selection and discipline, blocking the democratic process by which elites circulate and by which the best from the unfavoured classes are recruited into the ruling classes. In effect, the public school system has been massively devalued and is no longer able to fulfil its role in facilitating social advancement. Only money now enables access to a quality education. This anti-selective egalitarianism leads to corporatism, nepotism, and the blocked circulation of elites.

(see aristocracy; competition; democracy; meritocracy; selection)