Our Revolting Elites

October 05, 2023

by Charles Hugh Smith Of Two Minds

The ‘revolt of the elites’ has reversed the source of social disorder from the masses to the elites.

Prescient social critic Christopher Lasch’s 1996 book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, laid out a blueprint of social decay that continues to inform our descent into social disorder. Lasch excoriated our revolting elites for abandoning the foundations of social stability, upward mobility, the middle class and democracy in their race to enrich and insulate themselves in protected enclaves–neighborhoods, corporate suites, foundations and institutions–of fellow elites.

In Lasch’s analysis, America’s elites are revolting against the obligations imposed on traditional elites to nurture the foundational values that support democracy, national purpose, civic pride and a moral order that restrains narcissism and greed as a means of protecting opportunities for advancement from the pillage of the wealthy.