Elite Democracy

In this challenging work, Christopher Lasch makes an accessible critique of what is wrong with the values and beliefs of America's professional and managerial elites. The distinguished historian argues that democracy today is threatened not by the masses, as Jose Ortega y Gasset ( The Revolt of the Masses) had said, but by the elites. These elites - mobile and increasingly global in outlook - refuse to accept limits or ties to nation and place.

Ancient Greece first coined the concept of democracy, yet almost every major ancient Greek thinker - from Plato and Aristotle onward - was ambivalent toward or even hostile to democracy in any form. The explanation for this is quite simple: The elite perceived majority power as tantamount to a dictatorship of the proletariat. In ancient Greece, there can be traced not only the rudiments of modern democratic society but the entire Western tradition of antidemocratic thought.

They say we live in a democracy. We are free, and we should be grateful. But just how “free” are we? How democratic are our so-called “democracies”? Is it enough to simply elect our leaders and sit back, helpless, as they rule over us like dictators? What good is selecting our politicians, if we cannot control our media, police, or soldiers?

In both Europe and North America, populist movements have shattered existing party systems and thrown governments into turmoil. The embattled establishment claims that these populist insurgencies seek to overthrow liberal democracy. The truth is no less alarming but is more complex: Western...

Militant Normals, written by one of the conservative movement's wittiest commentators, is a no-holds-barred takedown of the preening elites who have all but made normalcy a crime in America. Donald Trump is only the beginning of a mighty disruption in American politics and culture, thanks to the...

Written by fifty-five of the richest white men, and signed by only thirty-nine of them, the US constitution is the sacred text of American nationalism. Popular perceptions of it are mired in idolatry, myth, and misinformation—many Americans have opinions on the constitution but have little idea what it says. This book examines the constitution for what it is—a rule book for elites to protect capitalism from democracy.