The Guardian published an article yesterday on the UK's most powerful people. The headline said:
Revealed: Britain's most powerful elite is 97% white
The article noted that the list includes:
- Politics and the civil service (the cabinet, Scottish and Welsh devolved administration ministers and the mayors, leaders and CEOs of selected English councils).
- Business and professional services (including FTSE 100 CEOs and the heads of law, accountancy, advertising, consulting and publishing firms).
- Policing, defence and the judiciary.
- Media (editors of newspapers and lifestyle magazines and heads of the TV broadcasters).
- Education (vice-chancellors of the 50 top universities).
- Sport (premier league managers and heads of sporting bodies).
- Arts bodies.
- Health (CEOs and chairs of the 50 largest NHS trusts by admissions).
I have to say that I simply do not accept the premise that these are the most powerful people in the country, let alone the elite. It is many years ago that my mentor during my teenage years (although neither he nor I would have recognised the term or that relationship at the time) told me that if I wanted to change the world (and I think he' perceived, quite correctly, that I did) then I should be a poet. And if not a poet then a writer. The last thing I should be, he said, was a politician. They were invariably, he said, at best the interpreters of other people's ideas, always destined to fall short of anyone's hopes in the process. It was the poet who inspired the vision, and that was where the real lay, and not with the administrator.
But the administrator is exactly the type of person that this power list includes. There are the arts administrators, but not the artists. The politicians, but not the political philosophers. The business advisers but not the business people. The editors, but not the columnists.
This is not then the elite of this country. It may be the power brokers. It may be the holders of the purse strings. And I am not surprised by the lack of ethnic diversity in that group. But let's not confuse these people with the elite. They have a certain sort of power. But not much of the sort that changes things, or leaves legacies; let alone the type that delivers recall of lives well lived.
I don't dispute we need good administrators. But let's not confuse them with the elite, please. They're something quite different.
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Disappointingly, it failed to engage with class and the structures of elite reproduction. A really basic thing would have been to go into how many were privately educated. On their website all they say is
“Whilst class and privilege are key factors the wide spectrum of this report, for example; union leaders, football managers and local authority CEO’s, demonstrates just how much the race penalty plays a role in the exclusion of BME individuals at the very top.”
They don’t then go on to actually highlight how class-based issues could be dealt with. I imagine, though, that would push the whole project more left than they want.
Which is not surprising, since the project is part run by a recruitment firm. http://green-park.co.uk/
I think that a study about the influence that the privately educated have and whether or not this is disproportionate is overdue. I read or heard something about the numbers of privately educated actors/entertainers around now. A level playing field it is not. Eton, for instance, put on several theatrical productions each year and the kids get more trips to the theatre and so on. This, it is said, gives the kids at Eton a distinct advantage over the rest and that is without the added advantages of connections and class.
This issue of privately eductated actors is not necessarily as serious as a number of other areas but it serves as an example.
I don’t think ‘a study’ would tell us anything that we don’t know.
I suspect Eton offers a very good education and gives its pupils lots of opportunities for personal development and exploration outside the core curriculum. Lots of other private schools do too.
If state schools were operating on similar budgets with a similar philosophy they might be able to compete, or at least narrow the gap. Collectively we steadfastly refuse to pay for good education and parsimoniously settle for something we think might do.
Not all state schools are bad by any means, but they are all struggling and the best are good despite much of government interference rather than because of it.
It very well suits the neoliberal consensus that the access to good education for one’s children is restricted by the ability to pay for it. Sadly there is vast support for a social ethos of which this is an almost inevitable consequence. And much of that support comes from people who are disadvantaged by it which tells you a lot about the effectiveness of neoliberal education policy.
‘Those that can, DO, those that can’t, critisise.’ Couldnt agree more. A talented organiser is worth their weight in gold. The originator of new ideas is Priceless and rare.
Basically I think that the list is nonsense.
The real power in this world lies with those whom we cannot see. In the boardrooms of say the Koch brothers and other acolytes of say, Ayn Rand, Charles Buchanan, Milton Friedman etc.
Maybe the real power lies with those who go to Davos? Or in the boardroom of Goldman Sachs and the GS alumni who have infected the world financial system?
I certainly agree with you about the ability of thinkers and writers to change things. But the world is a much more crowded place now – we can all de-tank on the net what we feel. There is more than ever before competition for ideas meant to grab our hearts, minds and souls.
It is both a good time and a bad time to be a writer I feel.
My reading of late has been about the creation of money and how mankind – upon creating it – realised that this utility caused its own problems – or should I say – the human behaviour around it caused problems. It seems that ancient societies knew that this was a problem – in particular the issues concerning debt. Measures like debt jubilees and strict controls over the issuing of real money were devised maybe centuries ago to deal with these problems. Religions supposedly made money lending a form of sin.
Yet after all this time, we have seen a society evolve where debt is now seen as normal. And other people’s debts – particularly of the rich – can be socialised. Boom and bust seems to be the lot we have settled for.
But how did it come to this? We have the answers in human history but we have somehow forgotten them. We have been led down a blind alley and we need to get out……………….
Pilgrim, I echo your ..suspicion(?) of Goldman Sachs alumni. From a list I saw recently they hold high positions of financial power/authority and influence across much of the world.
The EU is shot through with them, including Mark Carney and Mario Draghi. It’s one hell of an old boy network.
I would throw another element in the mixer here.. I recently referred to the Government as administrators in another comment elsewhere.
Of course a government has to do a lot of administration and needs good administrators. But that is all this government is capable of. They are not capable of leading. There is a big distinction between real leaders and administrators.
Our government are acting more like financial administrators however, just to complicate the metaphor, somewhat, selling off as many assets as possible, putting the country into receivership.
Powerful? Probably, within the framework of the formal economy & society. Élite? Depends on one’s definition. As my old maths teacher used to say to the class at the start of a new school year: “Is this the academic élite or whatever else floats to the top?”!
Of course you make a valid point and distinction. A good reason for the Citizen’s Income, which could liberate a lot of creative talent for the overall benefit of humanity.
I think the latter point very important
And why the Silicon Valley view of this is so wrong
In my experience when push comes to shove you might find that the Generals, Admirals and Flight Commanders are the real elite. In the mean time these other coves are left to mess around with the day to day things.
Interesting observation that, Richard – the difference between power brokers and the elite.
A lot of the Guardian list is composed of what Caitlin Moran describes as the ‘Blythe’. I think of them as the ‘Establishment’ rather than the ‘elite’. By keeping their noses clean, not frightening the horses, going with the flow etc etc they have a comfortable, affluent and fairly secure life. I’m not even sure they merit the title power brokers; rather they are the meretricious agents of power brokers.
Not many of them are going to rate a mention in the history books because they aren’t the movers and shakers. They are almost all employees and beneficiaries of state funding. Donald Trump’s ‘Swamp Critters’. For them to be creative or display intelligent independent thinking would fatally jeopardise their careers.
The real power brokers are invisible. People like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Alan Bezos et al aren’t in that category; they are disruptors, and mistakenly regarded as ‘elite’ figures because of their wealth and success. Their true elite staus is in their ability to radically change the landscape.
Meanwhile the power brokers are concerned to keep that disruption under their control. The Guardian listees work tirelessly to that end.
I think.
I agree
A friend of mine reckons there is no élite – only the E lite.
Where E stands for empathy.
The word elite has ceased to be of value as it has been turned into an insult, usually referring to someone who has power that someone else resents. From today’s right it is usually accompanied by ‘liberal’, and means those who hold socially progressive views that they dislike. In practice those who hold those views tend to have remarkably little real financial or political power.
In today’s Labour, one might argue that Momentum are a kind of elite. In the football world the Premier league are an elite, not because they are particularly good but because they have all the power – and money. In the media world, the Mail, Sun, Telegraph, Express and co are an elite. Head for the countryside and those large farmers and landowners are certainly an elite.
So its everything to do with power and the use/abuse of power to distort democracy in the interests of a small group. Those behind Brexit and the money that supports them provide a perfect example; they have abused their wealth and power to further their own narrow interests whilst repeatedly arguing that they are challenging the ‘elites’. In practice they are only concerned for their own narrow interests, and they don’t come much more ‘elitist’ than Johnson, Farage and Rees-Mogg
It is rarely the case that the most important things that change the world are appreciated or even generally known about when they happen. The front pages of newspapers almost always report quotidian trivia that will wrap fish and be forgotten quickly. The discovery of DNA, the development of the web, the invention of the transistor etc.
The use of Facebook to target political ads non-transparently is one of the things we will look back on as important and we are only beginning to understand it and think about legislation to regulate it. It was under the radar when it was used to elect Trump and deliver Brexit, and now the same operatives, even after the Bell Pottinger exposure, are busy in Kenya.
97 percent white and 100 percent rich; that’s the scandal.
perhaps if you consider elite as being those with the greatest capacity to waste resources…!
Leninism for the rich, fascism for the poor. ;O)
You reminded me of a quote from Vladimir Mayakovsky: Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it.
I like that, a lot