7. Who are the Elite?
• Fragmented Group
• Dominant Elite
– Top 1% of Wealth (owning 40% of worlds wealth)
– Control and benefit most from structure
• Functional Elite
• Outlying Elite
Dominant Elite
Functional Elite
Elites
Masses
Outlying Elite
8. Why Elites Matter
Elite is a Role
• Elites have been in our
society since the beginning
of time
• It is in our nature to want to
have leaders
• Elites have the best interest
of society at heart
Elite is a Right
• Every society needs elites to
maintain order
– Wealth is compensation for
creating good living
conditions (see failure of
Tsarist Elites 1917)
• Elites are the enlightened
• Role of Elites is to “run”
bastions of power to
preserve and enhance their
socio-economic position
10. Element of Fun: Outliers
Dominant (Structural) Elite
Outliers
Supporting Elite
• “Outliers”: Challenging the system and hierarchy
• The Outliers = The Outcasts
• Noam Chomsky
• Ha-Joon Chang
11. Maintenance of Elite
• « Transformational Leaders »
– Macro-level – maintaining the whole community
dominated by elites – identity voting
• « Transactional Leaders »
– Micro-level – from ‘one commoner’ to ‘the elite’ –
rite of passage
Adapted from Joseph Nye’s “The Powers to Lead”
12. Liminality – the rite of passage
• Concept developed by Arnold Van Gennep
“the time in which people are on the threshold
of entering a new phase in their life, having
left the previous one behind”
• Separation Transition Reincorporation
From one ‘imgined community’ to another...
13. Why do certain people tend to vote for elites against
their interests?
•
Identity Voting
– Reagan and his blue collar supporters
– Health Care in the U.S.
– War in Iraq
•
•
Benedict Anderson: Imagined Communities
Victor Turner: Communitas
14. Soft Power Strategies
• Example of:
Personal Responsibility
= Elite Manipulation
Charlton Heston : :Bloodline of Freedom
Charlton Heston Bloodline of Freedom
Individual Responsibility
Individual Responsibility
15. Micro-Level Strategies
• 2 Strategies that keep the masses embracing
inequalities and accepting “rules of the game”
1
19. Case Studies:
Illusion of Equality
“Anyone can make it!”
• Start-up: “Facebook” & Mark Zuckerberg
(always elitist oriented) Youngest billionaire
in the world
• Start-up: “Google” begun by Russian
Immigrants
• Competition: “American Idol”
20.
21. Case Studies:
Cementing the Glass Floor
•
•
•
Singers: Rappers and Pop-singers e.g.
“Jenny from the Block”
Governments: China’s internet
censorship
Royal Wedding: Prince William & a
“Commoner”
23. Power Relationship?
• These Regimes use vast HP
(repression) AND SP (Propaganda) to
maintain Elite Position (domestic)
• While US Uses less of both
• US = “Smart Soft Power”
Hard
Hard
Power
Power
Soft
Power
Smart
Smart
Power?
Power?
24. Smart Soft Power
• As society evolves to knowledge economy
• Elites need more sophisticated tool of
manipulation
• Smart Soft Power uses subtle Transforming
strategies combined with less Hard Power:
– Identity Voting
– Individual Responsibility & Freedom
– False Hope
Editor's Notes
I think that we should begin this presentation with very Specific aim.
BTW, I think we need to rename “Aim, Function, Tools” : at least “function doesn’t make sense but I used it as a concept holder
I wanted to take one slide to explain that the huge rise in wealth for just the top 1%, while the others real wages gave stagnated
And here, I want to point out that last time there was so much inequality, it led to the “Great Compression” that destroyed a lot of Elite power. Learning from History we need to be careful not to lead people to revolt again.
The second graph shows that although we have done a good job in keeping the masses ignorant of the real situation, we are worried that they still want a society that is far more egalitarian.
This is why good Soft Power strategies are important.
I propose that we separate the Elites into 3 groups
Also, Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Elite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitism
http://ampedstatus.com/full-report-the-economic-elite-vs-the-people-of-the-united-states-of-america/#elite
(especially part 3)
This is what we talked formed the hard power of the elites and I thought it went well with the concept of ‘exceptional group’
I propose that we separate the Elites into 3 groups
Also, Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Elite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitism
http://ampedstatus.com/full-report-the-economic-elite-vs-the-people-of-the-united-states-of-america/#elite
(especially part 3)
Remember we are playing Devils Advocates
This slide is a little bit ‘over the top’, with a lot of animation and pictures… let’s see if we can make it simpler.
I thought that showing images of people we think belong to the ‘elite’ in certain ways, each illustrating the characteristics of our diamond model of the elite’s smart power, would help pple see a bit clearly. I had trouble finding one that matches ‘status’ tho… Also, you have to watch this slide at least with the animation on, hopefully, it will make sense to u guys as well…
This slide is a little bit ‘over the top’, with a lot of animation and pictures… let’s see if we can make it simpler.
I thought that showing images of people we think belong to the ‘elite’ in certain ways, each illustrating the characteristics of our diamond model of the elite’s smart power, would help pple see a bit clearly. I had trouble finding one that matches ‘status’ tho… Also, you have to watch this slide at least with the animation on, hopefully, it will make sense to u guys as well…
And after these four marvelous slides --;;; I got stuck… so I thought maybe we could point out how these elites are maintained by using the five characteristics of their soft power to not only maintain their own community but also the whole society ‘under their values and soft power’ (macro-level) and that in order to do that, they needed to ‘recruit’ new personalities within the elite society (micro-level)
The one who presents this will have to explain the separation, transition, reincorporation, more in detail – I thought a few words on the phenomenon would be enough, then we could go and apply this to our ‘american dream’
Ok, so I was thinking if reduction in Both HP + SP = “real” Smart Power
I have not seen this “power relationship” discussed before
Basically want to suggest in improvement in Smart Power concept, for class discussion.