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You can look back historically to answer that question in many ways. One common answer had to do with organizing, managing, and controlling people for the benef

You can look back historically to answer that question in many ways. One common answer had to do with organizing, managing, and controlling people for the benefit of an elite ruling class. Which is still a reasonable description of e.g. US society today.

eecks 6y ago
That makes sense and is an interesting argument. Do you know if there are any books that explore that thought?
- antonvs 6y ago
  It's a big topic. I don't have any single book in mind, but I can point you to some sources. "Elite theory" in political science and sociology is closely related, e.g.: https://www.britannica.com/topic/elite-theory https://www.britannica.com/topic/elite-theory, which has a history going back to ancient Greece. U. Delaware's polsci department has an intro to this in the US context: https://www1.udel.edu/htr/Psc105/Texts/power.html https://www1.udel.edu/htr/Psc105/Texts/power.html , and there's also this article by a prof at USCS: https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/class_domination.html https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/class_domination.html Much of Chomsky's writing is concerned with such topics, e.g. https://truthout.org/articles/us-guardian-elite-rulers-date-back-to-nation-s-founding/ https://truthout.org/articles/us-guardian-elite-rulers-date-... , which makes the point that the notion of an elite guardian class goes back to the founding of the US, and it in turn was based on ideas inherited from monarchies. A couple of others of Chomsky's are https://chomsky.info/199606__/ https://chomsky.info/199606__/ or https://chomsky.info/20141202/ https://chomsky.info/20141202/ . These are just examples which deal with particular mechanisms of control which are used by elites to achieve outcomes in their favor. Marx and Engels are relevant here also. Here's the opening sentence of Chapter I of the Communist Manifesto (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-m... ): > "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." It goes on to discuss power structures in various types of historical society. There's lots more out there - is there any particular aspect you're interested in?

eecks 6y ago

That makes sense and is an interesting argument. Do you know if there are any books that explore that thought?

antonvs 6y ago
It's a big topic. I don't have any single book in mind, but I can point you to some sources. "Elite theory" in political science and sociology is closely related, e.g.: https://www.britannica.com/topic/elite-theory https://www.britannica.com/topic/elite-theory, which has a history going back to ancient Greece. U. Delaware's polsci department has an intro to this in the US context: https://www1.udel.edu/htr/Psc105/Texts/power.html https://www1.udel.edu/htr/Psc105/Texts/power.html , and there's also this article by a prof at USCS: https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/class_domination.html https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/class_domination.html Much of Chomsky's writing is concerned with such topics, e.g. https://truthout.org/articles/us-guardian-elite-rulers-date-back-to-nation-s-founding/ https://truthout.org/articles/us-guardian-elite-rulers-date-... , which makes the point that the notion of an elite guardian class goes back to the founding of the US, and it in turn was based on ideas inherited from monarchies. A couple of others of Chomsky's are https://chomsky.info/199606__/ https://chomsky.info/199606__/ or https://chomsky.info/20141202/ https://chomsky.info/20141202/ . These are just examples which deal with particular mechanisms of control which are used by elites to achieve outcomes in their favor. Marx and Engels are relevant here also. Here's the opening sentence of Chapter I of the Communist Manifesto (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-m... ): > "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." It goes on to discuss power structures in various types of historical society. There's lots more out there - is there any particular aspect you're interested in?