Jan 9, 2012

By 19

Elite and Underclass

Elite and Underclass

At 416 pages, Coming Apart is Charles Murray’s most substantial offering since 2003’s Human Accomplishment. It continues a theme familiar to readers of The Bell Curve: increasing American social stratification. Murray focuses on whites because otherwise the social trends he describes might lazily be explained away as effects of demographic change...

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Oct 26, 2009

By 5

Roman Apocalypse:
Cola di Rienzi and the Politics of Proto-Fascism

Ronald F. MustoApocalypse in Rome: Cola di Rienzo and the Politics of the New AgeBerkeley: University of California Press, 2003A young Italian nationalist leads his followers on a march through Rome, seizing power from corrupt elites to establish a palingenetic regime. Declaring himself Tribune, his ultimate aim is to recreate the power and glory of Ancient Rome. However, a...

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Aug 29, 2009

By 1

Vilfredo Pareto: The Karl Marx of Fascism
Part III: The Theory of Elites

Circulation of the ElitesApart from his analyses of residues and derivations, Pareto is notable among sociologists for the theory known as “the circulation of the elites.” Let us remember that Pareto considered society a system in equilibrium, where processes of change tend to set in motion forces that work to restore and maintain social balance.Pareto asserts that...

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Aug 28, 2009

By 0

Vilfredo Pareto: The Karl Marx of Fascism
Part II: Foxes and Lions

Residues and DerivationsOne of Pareto’s most noteworthy and controversial theories is that human beings are not, for the most part, motivated by logic and reason but rather by sentiment. Les Systèmes socialistes is interspersed with this theme and it appears in its fully developed form in Pareto’s vast Treatise on General Sociology. In his Treatise, Pareto examines the...

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