• The terms “elitism” and “democracy” are often seen as antonyms, yet a tradition of political thought treats them as distinct but not opposite, and even as mutually interdependent.

• Gaetano Mosca is one of the earliest and most eloquent proponents of this tradition, justifying the serious study of his thought.

• Mosca’s elitism is democratic not only in his unique sense of democracy, defined in terms of open elites, but also in relation to other concepts like liberalism, meritocracy, and pluralism.

• The concept of pluralism is especially important in Mosca’s theory, as it tends to rival elitism in significance and may overshadow it.

• A balance between elitism and pluralism can be achieved by regarding elitism as an analytical explanatory principle and pluralism as a normative evaluative principle.

The Fundamental Elitist Principle

• In 1884, Mosca published On the Theory of Governments and on Parliamentary Government: Historical and Social Studies, which has two parts: a set of basic principles for studying political phenomena and an analysis of parliamentary government in Italy.

• Mosca’s most fundamental principle: In all societies with a government, those who control public power (governors) are always a minority, while the majority (governed) are subject to the government but do not participate in it.

• This idea is a constant theme in Mosca’s thought and is restated, applied, and elaborated in his later writings.

• In the Elements of Political Science (1896), Mosca describes the governors and governed as “two classes” where the governors monopolize power, perform political functions, and enjoy its advantages, while the governed are regulated by the governors through legal or violent means.

• Mosca argues that this denies egalitarianism, as it is hard to imagine a world where everyone is equally subject to a single person or manages political affairs equally.

• In the preface to the second edition of Theory of Governments (1925), Mosca restates the principle, emphasizing that the main differences in political organizations are related to the formation and functioning of the classes of leaders.

• Mosca contrasts his approach with focusing on exceptional men or the people and masses.

• Mosca calls the class of governors or leaders the political class and refers to his theory as the theory of the political class.

• Scholars use various terms like ruling class, governing class, leading class, dominant class, and elitism to describe this principle, though no consensus exists on their meanings.

• Mosca’s fundamental elitist principle can be associated with elitism, a term popularized by Pareto, who had similar ideas, leading to a famous dispute between the two thinkers.

• Clarification of the term elitism would be useful, but it’s premature for now.

• Mosca’s formulations are categorized: the 1884 principle of minority rule, the 1896 principle of unequal power, and the 1925 methodological principle of leadership.

• The principle functions to provide the fundamental law of political science and establish the study of politics on a scientific footing based on universal generalizations.

• Mosca didn’t see knowledge as scientific only if it consisted of immutable laws like those in natural sciences, but he emphasized the need for invariant regularities in political science.

• At a substantive level, Mosca’s principle offers a better solution to the classification of governments than Aristotle’s and Montesquieu’s classical classifications.

• Aristotle classified governments into monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic, depending on whether power is held by one person, a small group, or the majority.

• Montesquieu classified governments into despotic, monarchical, and republican, depending on whether the ruler’s power is absolute, limited, or elected by citizens.

• Mosca’s main objection to traditional classifications of government is that they are insufficiently realistic.

• By Aristotle’s definition, the class of democracies known to him would be empty because, in Pericles’ Athens, most inhabitants were slaves or foreigners without citizenship rights, making it more of an aristocracy than a democracy.

• Montesquieu’s classification, at the end of the nineteenth century, would label Belgium and Britain as monarchies, and France and the United States as republics; yet Belgium and France resembled each other more than either did Belgium and Britain or France and the United States.

• Montesquieu’s classification allows for significant intraclass differences and significant interclass similarities, which Mosca criticizes as superficial because they don’t cover the deeper reality of governments.

• Mosca not only critiques what these governments have in common but also stresses the need to understand how they differ and to identify the deeper features that define their types.

• Mosca’s critique is part of his realist approach to politics, where ideals should be based on facts and not be mere Utopian dreams.

• Mosca’s critique of Rousseau’s populist theory of democracy asserts that if the principle of minority rule is correct, then democracy in Rousseau’s sense has never existed and likely never will.

• Mosca emphasizes the real over the ideal, arguing that values and ideals should be grounded in facts rather than based on unrealistic wishes.

• Mosca’s primary objection is to a theory of democracy, not to specific democratic institutions or practices.

• Mosca’s elitist principle has often been perceived as antidemocratic, a theme that will be explored further.

• Mosca’s principle can be compared with Marxism and social Darwinism.

• Mosca’s view is reminiscent of Marx’s theory of the state and class struggle, where the upper classes dominate and exploit the lower classes.

• However, Mosca rejects Marxist economism, arguing that economic structures don’t determine all other aspects of society. Instead, a mutual causal interaction exists where political or intellectual phenomena can also influence economic ones.

• Classes, according to Mosca, should be defined not only by economic criteria but also by other factors.

• For Mosca, class struggle occurs between a ruling elite and a subaltern elite claiming to represent the masses, not primarily between the ruling class and the general populace.

• Mosca argues that action by the masses can only happen through the agency of select leaders, not directly by the masses themselves.

• The Marxian prediction of a classless society is dismissed by Mosca, who asserts that the elitist principle ensures the re-emergence of class distinctions, making a classless society impossible.

• Social Darwinism, which extends Darwin’s biological theories to the social sphere, is misinterpreted by some as connected to Mosca’s elitism.

• Mosca rejects the idea that the elitist principle is tied to social Darwinism, clarifying that the struggle for existence and the struggle for pre-eminence are different, though both important in human life.