Elite

1884 political cartoon, representing the rich plutocrats at a banquet while a humble family asks for alms.

The elite or elite (from French elite 'selected or ruling minority') is a minority group of people who have a status superior to the rest of the people in society. Frank W. Elwell has defined it thus: "Men and women located in the highest positions of the dominant institutions of a society and who, consequently, hold enormous power".

Within the same society there may be different elites, depending on the particular interests of each one of them. The existence of these plural elites is related to the growing differentiation of society. To the extent that different social fields are becoming more and more autonomous (art, economy, science, politics, etc.), sectoral elites are emerging that defend their own points of view. From this angle, one of the central problems of modern societies is horizontal integration, that is, the maintenance of moderately harmonious relations between different sectoral elites. On the other hand, they also present the challenge of vertical integration, that is, the establishment of fluid contact with the common population.

Description

In the history of social thought this topic has been studied since ancient times, based on concepts of wisdom and virtue. However, it is towards the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century when the notion of elite becomes highly relevant. The appearance of the term elite in French is closely related to republican ideals, as the concept symbolizes the demand that those who exercise power must be chosen "for their virtues and merits" and not because of his family background.

In analytical terms, the parents of a Theory of elites are Caetano Mosca and Vilfredo Pareto, even though some also consider the founding relevance of Robert Michels, especially for his law on the growing oligarchization of political parties in particular and of social organizations in general. Another author of great relevance is Wright Mills, who coined the concept "power elite", which refers to the nucleus of power that occurs in the United States among the economic, political and military elites. José Ortega y Gasset reflected on the relationship between elites and masses in La rebellion de las masas (1930).

From the point of view of conservatism, and in general of political ideologies leaning to the right, there is a certain consensus that elites are necessary in society and that it would be rather chimerical to think of their non-existence^{[citation required]}. In fact, with the fall of Soviet socialism, elites slowly returned to occupy a central place in social theory. The characteristic of a theory of elites is the emphasis on the conflict between different elites, as well as the imputation of responsibility for the course that society is adopting and, finally, the emphasis on agency rather than structure. In fact, elites can be conceived as key actors to enable or prevent change in a society.

Etymology and accentuation

The Spanish word "elite" It comes from the French word elite, and this one from the Latin eligere ("choose" or "select"). In French, the acute accent is not an accent of intensity, but indicates that the e is pronounced closed. In Spanish, it has been mistakenly understood that the acute accent of elite was for intensity, which is why it is normally pronounced as an esdrújula word, although due to the influence of English, the version without an accent on the first e is simply read as "Elit". The Royal Spanish Academy admits both elite and elite. The Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts includes:

elite or elite. Both accents are valid. The elite French voice, which means ‘select or rectory’ and is pronounced in French [elít], adapted to Spanish in the lyana elite form [elite]; but the elite French graph, which circulated as extranjerism for a while, led many people to pronounce this French voice interpreting the tilde in the Spanish way, that is, as a word of the word. Although this pronunciation is anti-etymological, it is today the most widespread even among culte people; therefore, the elite graph and the corresponding esdujula pronunciation are also considered correct.

Sociological and psychological definitions

C. Wright Mills defined the mid-century XX elite in a sociological sense: a relatively small group that controls major corporations, politics and the army. It has been proposed that today the elite is defined more in psychological terms: the majority of the population feels a lack of security, optimism and confidence in their own opportunities, while they feel that a small group is responsible for such a lack, for having accumulated such resources for their benefit and to the detriment of the majority. Although there is no consensus on specifying who makes up that elite, each one perceives in a personal way if someone belongs to the elite when they are presented by the media.