Elite Theory And The Theory of Democracy

I-   T H E   R U L I N G   C L A S S

The citizenry of every political society can be divided into two classes: the rulers and the ruled. Moreover, the ruling class is always a numerical minority as compared to the ruled class. This is not merely an empirical regularity, it is inherent in the very concept of a political society; it is an immutable and universal law that holds true for all times and places. This law of human civilization, the law of elites, constitutes the central tenet of Italian school elitism. The law of elites was first elaborated by the eminent political theorist Gaetano Mosca in the 1870s while he was a student under Angelo Messesdagila at the University of Palermo. It was during this time that Mosca stumbled upon a profound insight. Mosca realised that the basic idea underlying the analytical categorisation that Hipppolyte Taine had applied to the Ancien Regime could be generalised and applied to any conceivable political society. Mosca posited that if one studies any polity, be it a monarchy, a republic, a dictatorship, or any political arrangement whatsoever, one inevitably discovers that real power is never held by one person, the king or dictator, nor by the whole populace. Rather, actual power is always wielded by a particular class of people, which is always a small minority as compared with the whole population. 

The Economic Means Versus The Political Means

The great German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943) wrote in his masterpiece "The State" that there exists only two principal ways of acquiring wealth. The first way is to engage in production and to exchange that good for the product of another producer in a mutually beneficial trade. This is the way of production and exchange: The way of the free market. Oppenheimer called this method the "economic means" of obtaining wealth. 

The Epistemological Foundation of Economic Science

One of, if not the most fundamental difference between the Austrian school and the mainstream neoclassical school is the difference of opinion with regard to the essential epistemological character of economic propositions. The Austrian position is that economic propositions constitute a priori knowledge; that is, knowledge derived, not from observational experience, but from a true axiom. Mises has poignantly articulated the Austrian position: