Elites: Ruling Classes in the Modern World

Undergraduate / Graduate

What can we learn about societies in the past and present from the study of those at their top? What do ruling classes do when they rule? In modern history, what have been the different types of ruling groups that have appeared? What have been the sources of their power? In what ways, for example, do capitalist elites differ from their feudal predecessors? How do colonial elites negotiate the complexities of dominating a society that is itself dominated from the outside? How did the master class in slave societies differ from other capitalist elites? How have ruling groups tried to organize themselves, secure their unity, control the state, suppress thier challengers, and disseminate their ideas and culture through the wider society? When have they failed to do this? And what are the consequences of an elite that no longer exercises its leadership responsibly? A fish, they say, rots from the head. We will read histories for the first two thirds of the quarter, and then turn at the end to contemporary sociology of elites.