Democracy and elite

Modern Age, Spring, 2003 by Mordecai Roshwald

How is the will of the people assured this overriding power? How do the people approximate the model of direct democracy, discarded by the Greek philosophers and their latter-day followers?

This is achieved by two measures. One is the subservience of officials to public opinion, by relinquishing their right to retain their individual convictions, without concern for re-election. Another is the continuous probing of public opinion on current issues by means of polls--conducted by political parties, special organizations, media of communication. Such poils, usually based on a representative statistical sample, can gauge public opinion with a considerable degree of accuracy. Thus, as public opinion is consistently explored and the elected officials are inclined scrupulously to follow it, American democracy increasingly becomes direct democracy--if not de iure, then de facto.

It will be said: "What is wrong with this state of things? Is not Democracy the rule of the people--the whole people and not an elite, whether self-appointed or elected? The more the people dominate the political scene and control the government, the better! Who needs elites, anyway? The spirit of American democracy is opposed to elitism. We are all equal and let no one assume that he or she is better than others!"

Indeed, in the vogue of recent years "elitism" has become a pejorative term. If someone has elitist sentiments, he tends either to repress or to hide them. For being an elitist means that one assumes that some people are better than others in certain fields and therefore should be entrusted with a dominant or an authoritative position in that field. Yet, such a stance is exactly correct and it is shared, to some extent, almost by everybody, including the ardent egalitarians. Let us substantiate this assertion by a few examples.

If we face a health problem, to whom do we turn? Is it our neighbor? Or do we poll the opinion of the community? As is well known, we look for someone in the elite group known as the medical profession, and, in certain cases, we may even seek out the top of the profession, the creme la creme of the medical establishment. If our automobile requires attention, we look for a suitable garage--again the professional elite-on the assumption that they know better how to take care of the machine than laymen in this field. If we want to enjoy a concert, we again turn to a certain group of musical elite, or buy a tape on which the performance of such a select group has been recorded.

One need not multiply examples to show that civilization--especially modern civilization-relies heavily on expertise, which is translated into the functions of specific elites in various and diverse spheres of human needs and activity. Indeed, the diverse elites are listed, though not exhausted, in the Yellow Pages.

This reasoning should lead us to the conclusion that in public affairs and in political issues there are also those few who know better, in contrast to the crowd of ordinary citizens. Here, too, one would expect to find an elite, qualified experts who can guide us through the complexities of political endeavor.