4 ms·

Worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elite

beebeepka 5y ago
> Changes of regime, revolutions, and so on occur not when rulers are overthrown from below, but when one elite replaces another. The role of ordinary people in such transformation is not that of initiators or principal actors, but as followers and supporters of one elite or another. Easy to say duh to this in 2021 thanks to education, internet, and everything. Must've been a breakthrough a few hundred years ago. For various reasons
- wyager 5y ago
  A lot of people still have trouble with the fact that successful popular protest movements are usually just part of the legitimating process for some political shift which has already occurred, and not a significant causal factor in that shift occurring.
  - beebeepka 5y ago
    Agreed. I think it's an ego problem. You know, the most common one with us humans
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  It's an interesting idea but I'm seeing whispers of No True Scotsman fallacy. It's true, of course, that the end result will be a subset of the people leading and most not (which is an outgrowth of basic specialization theory: if everyone's in charge of coordination and leadership, nobody has time to do the work that needs coordination and leadership). But was the new elite always apart from the followers and supporters, or are the rulers overthrown and during that process some subset of the overthrowers become a new elite due to the needs of specialization? Or, to say it another way: would the "new elite" have ever been an elite if they hadn't won? George Washington was never commissioned in the British army. Fidel Castro was the bastard son of an immigrant. Had their revolutions not succeeded, would history remember them as elite?
  - optimalsolver 5y ago
    Despite getting obliterated, the upper strata of Confederate society are probably still remembered as being elite.
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      I would call that the exception that proves the rule because of the "Lost Cause" myth. There are enough people who think the losing side wasn't the wrong side to keep the legend alive for the Confederate leadership.
zbendefy 5y ago
This is also nicely illustrated in CGP Grey's rules for rulers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
v_london 5y ago
This concept is important to the way I think about crypto. It feels like a war between two elites (TradFi vs Crypto insiders and VCs), if crypto wins it it will not "democratize finance" when 90% of all Bitcoins have been mined in the first decade of the project's lifespan. (This is not an attack against crypto in general, there are ways to design a cryptocurrency so it's equal to all participants regardless of the time they buy in, it's just that they fail to gain adoption because of a lack of VC funding and support from the crypto community, as neither can make a quick buck out of it)
- dekervin 5y ago
  Well it is not really a war, so much as a rebalancing of power dynmics within Tradfi circles. You can look at the impact of computer on capital markets since the early eighties through the evolution of the social structure of investment banks labor force. It slowly became less and less blue blooded thanks to the need for quantitative skills. But there was still a massive moat for institutions due to the need for trust, backed by a regulatory framework. And entrenched institutions means entrenched elite. What crypto provide is a temporary workaround for a faction of the financial elite to build rival institutions. But the crucial thing is member of the new "crypto" elite are for the most part "junior" (in the status sense) members of the Tradfi elite. So for the rest of us peons, it will stay business as usual !

> Changes of regime, revolutions, and so on occur not when rulers are overthrown from below, but when one elite replaces another. The role of ordinary people in such transformation is not that of initiators or principal actors, but as followers and supporters of one elite or another. Easy to say duh to this in 2021 thanks to education, internet, and everything. Must've been a breakthrough a few hundred years ago. For various reasons

wyager 5y ago
A lot of people still have trouble with the fact that successful popular protest movements are usually just part of the legitimating process for some political shift which has already occurred, and not a significant causal factor in that shift occurring.
- beebeepka 5y ago
  Agreed. I think it's an ego problem. You know, the most common one with us humans
shadowgovt 5y ago
It's an interesting idea but I'm seeing whispers of No True Scotsman fallacy. It's true, of course, that the end result will be a subset of the people leading and most not (which is an outgrowth of basic specialization theory: if everyone's in charge of coordination and leadership, nobody has time to do the work that needs coordination and leadership). But was the new elite always apart from the followers and supporters, or are the rulers overthrown and during that process some subset of the overthrowers become a new elite due to the needs of specialization? Or, to say it another way: would the "new elite" have ever been an elite if they hadn't won? George Washington was never commissioned in the British army. Fidel Castro was the bastard son of an immigrant. Had their revolutions not succeeded, would history remember them as elite?
- optimalsolver 5y ago
  Despite getting obliterated, the upper strata of Confederate society are probably still remembered as being elite.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    I would call that the exception that proves the rule because of the "Lost Cause" myth. There are enough people who think the losing side wasn't the wrong side to keep the legend alive for the Confederate leadership.

zbendefy 5y ago

This is also nicely illustrated in CGP Grey's rules for rulers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

v_london 5y ago

This concept is important to the way I think about crypto. It feels like a war between two elites (TradFi vs Crypto insiders and VCs), if crypto wins it it will not "democratize finance" when 90% of all Bitcoins have been mined in the first decade of the project's lifespan. (This is not an attack against crypto in general, there are ways to design a cryptocurrency so it's equal to all participants regardless of the time they buy in, it's just that they fail to gain adoption because of a lack of VC funding and support from the crypto community, as neither can make a quick buck out of it)

dekervin 5y ago
Well it is not really a war, so much as a rebalancing of power dynmics within Tradfi circles. You can look at the impact of computer on capital markets since the early eighties through the evolution of the social structure of investment banks labor force. It slowly became less and less blue blooded thanks to the need for quantitative skills. But there was still a massive moat for institutions due to the need for trust, backed by a regulatory framework. And entrenched institutions means entrenched elite. What crypto provide is a temporary workaround for a faction of the financial elite to build rival institutions. But the crucial thing is member of the new "crypto" elite are for the most part "junior" (in the status sense) members of the Tradfi elite. So for the rest of us peons, it will stay business as usual !