Parvini points to a situation where leftists implement something that polls 52% against and says "See, see, they don't care about public opinion!" But he ignores the part where they spend years and millions of dollars on propaganda getting the polling numbers from 85% against to 52% against at which point they only have to spend a little political capital for large long-term political benefits. If public opinion doesn't matter, why do they work so hard shaping it?
Absolutely. Even totalitarian states spend enormous amounts of money on propaganda. Why do that, if they have complete control of guns and money? Obviously, because they know that political power is more than just guns and money.
While it is true that Burnham, at the very least - if not the rest of them too -, often completely discounts the place of ideas and ideals in political life, even among the conceptions of the actual elites with power, I still think this critique doesn't stand, because the first and foremost interest of any elite is to perpetuate its own political primacy, and protests, movements or any other form of populist uprising, short of literal armed conflict, changes nothing in itself. Your example of "protests that brought down Communism" is particularly egregious, because, even if there were people on the ground advocating it, that change came quite clearly from above, not below, and it didn't come so cleanly in the name of "the people" as one would like to imagine.
That is the delusion being pointed to by Parvini. The fact that counter-elites, or ambitious non-elites looking to climb the ranks, can use such discontentment to launch themselves into high offices, and then maybe even attempt to alleviate the problems causing discontent for the good of their clients, does not disprove the mechanism pointed out either by Parvini or his intellectual ancestors.
I think you misunderstand my argument, because I made very clear that elites always rule. But that empirical fact does not refute the NORM of popular sovereignty. Because some elites rule to benefit the people, i.e., for the common good.
The collapse of communism came about because the people in power were no longer willing to kill or die to maintain it. They accepted the norm of popular sovereignty but were no longer willing to maintain the pretense of actually governing in the name of the people. In short, preserving their power was no longer a sufficient motive to do what was necessary to maintain power.
It refutes popular sovereignty to the extent that the "by the people" part of the often-referenced formula is not just "complicated", but literally ficticious. Figured that your argument was strongest at saying that the "for the people" part, while debatable, is not as inherently ridiculous or negligible as elite theorists often make it out to be, which is a point I also generally agree with.
As for the Soviet elites, they weren't willing to kill and die for the Soviet socialist model, that much is true, but they obviously kept their power, Putin is the best example of this, being a literal KGB agent and now ruler of the entire country. Most of the oligarchs, whether still powerful or having lost power under Putin, were heavily connected with the old Politburo and other state elites and amassed fortune on the margins through criminality in the late Soviet years. The exact composition of the elites shifted, but they were not unseated in any meaningful sense.
Sadly, Russia did not make a transition to a better model of government. Neither did Belarus. Most other former Soviet bloc countries did, however.
"By the people" is not "literally fictitious." Popular participation takes place through things like elections, juries, plebiscites, referenda, and ballot initiatives. But given that some people literally cannot participate in government, there is always an element of representation of some people's interests by others. This is where the normative element comes in. Some people are entrusted with exercising power on behalf of the interests of others—as opposed to simply benefiting themselves.
There is so much control and funnelling around these processes that they might as well be genuinely non-existent. When the conservative party membership had to choose between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, most voted for Truss and she won, becoming prime minister, but because the elites did not want her, she was forced out of office and Rishi Sunak, who was not only "not voted for" but actively voted against, by his own base, was made prime minister in her stead.
In Italy, before Meloni could get in to office, the president of the country and the other parties in parliament colluded and conspired to form increasingly unwieldy coalitions and to install "technocratic" prime ministers to keep her out, same as they had done with previous movements like that of Salvini.
In France they tried to bar Marine le Pen from even contesting the election over some bogus Russian bribery charge.
In the US, Trump was sidelined, spat on by the very state functionaries who were supposed to obey his directives as president, and then eventually impeached and forced to face legal jeopardy over the elite unwillingness to have him in power.
The fact that Meloni and Trump could still rise to their respective offices doesn't disprove that popular discontentment with these tactics has done nothing to actually prevent the elites from stopping people they find inconvenient in their tracks. They are still restraining Meloni and Trump's governments every time they try something that would really push the needle and, in the UK, there was quite literally no recourse for the discontented, and there hasn't been for a while. Same in Romania too, where the "far-right" candidate was literally barred from contesting the presidency in a second round over some "Russian bots" allegation.
The elites absolutely have the power to shut down people they don't like, and where they cannot control the ballot boxes themselves and cannot stop a transfer of power to people they don't like, they still frustrate all their efforts through a Praetorian state apparatus. Democracy and popular sovereignty are fictional in that sense absolutely, because the system is built in such a way that vast portions of the population cannot get what they support or vote for regardless of what they do.
"even if there were people on the ground advocating it, that change came quite clearly from above, not below"
I disagree with the fact that you make it one or the other: above, NOT below.
It's both. Communism was discredited in the eyes of the common people. Eventually the elites agreed with this. Everyone is sensitive to social pressure, elites included. Being seen as "uncool", as "yesterday's news", is as important for changing people's minds as is a huge march or protest. Elites are human beings.
If elites had never agreed to dismantle or reform it, it wouldn't have fallen at that specific junction. Things may have still irreparably changed, nobody denies that, but not substantially enough to force such a wide political reshuffling. That is the elite theory claim there, I would argue.
Your point about social pressures is exaggerated. Social pressures didn't stop the tanks in Czechoslovakia in the 60s, or in Hungary in the 50s, nor did the Soviet leadership care to be seen we hip or cool by the Poles, Czechs or Hungarians they ruled over. And that was the multicultural/anti-national soviet union too there, we can't even handwave it away on the basis of ethnic parochialism.
This is a good insight. Holding power is not easy. Rival factions are not always visible to us plebs. It is analogous to being very rich; it seems easy from a distance but investments are tricky and you can lose it all quickly.
Successful elites then are probably those that change with the times, implying a degree of skill. Keeping the masses happy while they retain their place. They secure borders, keep unemployment low, or otherwise make life better.
Today's Western elites could indeed be seen as failing to keep us secure and content. They are so focused on their own power they have lost the ability to negotiate with the masses and make the changes needed. That surely means populism can be seen as a precursor to a circulation of elites, which the various theorists do discuss. Their iron fists are signs of insensitivity to populist currents.
I find Parvini's voice very annoying. I tend to ignore him for this reason. I think this is valid.
Parvini points to a situation where leftists implement something that polls 52% against and says "See, see, they don't care about public opinion!" But he ignores the part where they spend years and millions of dollars on propaganda getting the polling numbers from 85% against to 52% against at which point they only have to spend a little political capital for large long-term political benefits. If public opinion doesn't matter, why do they work so hard shaping it?
Absolutely. Even totalitarian states spend enormous amounts of money on propaganda. Why do that, if they have complete control of guns and money? Obviously, because they know that political power is more than just guns and money.
While it is true that Burnham, at the very least - if not the rest of them too -, often completely discounts the place of ideas and ideals in political life, even among the conceptions of the actual elites with power, I still think this critique doesn't stand, because the first and foremost interest of any elite is to perpetuate its own political primacy, and protests, movements or any other form of populist uprising, short of literal armed conflict, changes nothing in itself. Your example of "protests that brought down Communism" is particularly egregious, because, even if there were people on the ground advocating it, that change came quite clearly from above, not below, and it didn't come so cleanly in the name of "the people" as one would like to imagine.
That is the delusion being pointed to by Parvini. The fact that counter-elites, or ambitious non-elites looking to climb the ranks, can use such discontentment to launch themselves into high offices, and then maybe even attempt to alleviate the problems causing discontent for the good of their clients, does not disprove the mechanism pointed out either by Parvini or his intellectual ancestors.
I think you misunderstand my argument, because I made very clear that elites always rule. But that empirical fact does not refute the NORM of popular sovereignty. Because some elites rule to benefit the people, i.e., for the common good.
The collapse of communism came about because the people in power were no longer willing to kill or die to maintain it. They accepted the norm of popular sovereignty but were no longer willing to maintain the pretense of actually governing in the name of the people. In short, preserving their power was no longer a sufficient motive to do what was necessary to maintain power.
It refutes popular sovereignty to the extent that the "by the people" part of the often-referenced formula is not just "complicated", but literally ficticious. Figured that your argument was strongest at saying that the "for the people" part, while debatable, is not as inherently ridiculous or negligible as elite theorists often make it out to be, which is a point I also generally agree with.
As for the Soviet elites, they weren't willing to kill and die for the Soviet socialist model, that much is true, but they obviously kept their power, Putin is the best example of this, being a literal KGB agent and now ruler of the entire country. Most of the oligarchs, whether still powerful or having lost power under Putin, were heavily connected with the old Politburo and other state elites and amassed fortune on the margins through criminality in the late Soviet years. The exact composition of the elites shifted, but they were not unseated in any meaningful sense.
Sadly, Russia did not make a transition to a better model of government. Neither did Belarus. Most other former Soviet bloc countries did, however.
"By the people" is not "literally fictitious." Popular participation takes place through things like elections, juries, plebiscites, referenda, and ballot initiatives. But given that some people literally cannot participate in government, there is always an element of representation of some people's interests by others. This is where the normative element comes in. Some people are entrusted with exercising power on behalf of the interests of others—as opposed to simply benefiting themselves.
There is so much control and funnelling around these processes that they might as well be genuinely non-existent. When the conservative party membership had to choose between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, most voted for Truss and she won, becoming prime minister, but because the elites did not want her, she was forced out of office and Rishi Sunak, who was not only "not voted for" but actively voted against, by his own base, was made prime minister in her stead.
In Italy, before Meloni could get in to office, the president of the country and the other parties in parliament colluded and conspired to form increasingly unwieldy coalitions and to install "technocratic" prime ministers to keep her out, same as they had done with previous movements like that of Salvini.
In France they tried to bar Marine le Pen from even contesting the election over some bogus Russian bribery charge.
In the US, Trump was sidelined, spat on by the very state functionaries who were supposed to obey his directives as president, and then eventually impeached and forced to face legal jeopardy over the elite unwillingness to have him in power.
The fact that Meloni and Trump could still rise to their respective offices doesn't disprove that popular discontentment with these tactics has done nothing to actually prevent the elites from stopping people they find inconvenient in their tracks. They are still restraining Meloni and Trump's governments every time they try something that would really push the needle and, in the UK, there was quite literally no recourse for the discontented, and there hasn't been for a while. Same in Romania too, where the "far-right" candidate was literally barred from contesting the presidency in a second round over some "Russian bots" allegation.
The elites absolutely have the power to shut down people they don't like, and where they cannot control the ballot boxes themselves and cannot stop a transfer of power to people they don't like, they still frustrate all their efforts through a Praetorian state apparatus. Democracy and popular sovereignty are fictional in that sense absolutely, because the system is built in such a way that vast portions of the population cannot get what they support or vote for regardless of what they do.
"even if there were people on the ground advocating it, that change came quite clearly from above, not below"
I disagree with the fact that you make it one or the other: above, NOT below.
It's both. Communism was discredited in the eyes of the common people. Eventually the elites agreed with this. Everyone is sensitive to social pressure, elites included. Being seen as "uncool", as "yesterday's news", is as important for changing people's minds as is a huge march or protest. Elites are human beings.
If elites had never agreed to dismantle or reform it, it wouldn't have fallen at that specific junction. Things may have still irreparably changed, nobody denies that, but not substantially enough to force such a wide political reshuffling. That is the elite theory claim there, I would argue.
Your point about social pressures is exaggerated. Social pressures didn't stop the tanks in Czechoslovakia in the 60s, or in Hungary in the 50s, nor did the Soviet leadership care to be seen we hip or cool by the Poles, Czechs or Hungarians they ruled over. And that was the multicultural/anti-national soviet union too there, we can't even handwave it away on the basis of ethnic parochialism.
This is a good insight. Holding power is not easy. Rival factions are not always visible to us plebs. It is analogous to being very rich; it seems easy from a distance but investments are tricky and you can lose it all quickly.
Successful elites then are probably those that change with the times, implying a degree of skill. Keeping the masses happy while they retain their place. They secure borders, keep unemployment low, or otherwise make life better.
Today's Western elites could indeed be seen as failing to keep us secure and content. They are so focused on their own power they have lost the ability to negotiate with the masses and make the changes needed. That surely means populism can be seen as a precursor to a circulation of elites, which the various theorists do discuss. Their iron fists are signs of insensitivity to populist currents.
So you think we are seeing out elites go down?