The Irony Of Democracy, by Thomas R. Dye/The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy by Nicholas Lehmann
“The people at the top of a society almost always feel themselves to be genuinely superior to the rest, not just luckily born, and to have earned their place.” - Nicholas Lehmann, author of “The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy”
I’m reading “The Irony Of Democracy”, by Thomas R. Dye and Harmon Zeigler; it is a textbook that uses “Elite Theory” to explain the workings of the American political system (in particular, but the theory itself is applicable to any governing system). Very readable, despite being a textbook, in fact.
I picked it up at the thrift store the other day… the copy I have is three editions out of date (9th), but I doubt the basic theory has changed much. I’m only on page 87, but already, the analysis of the politics behind the formulation of the Constitution and of the biases of the founders (the Constitution was very specifically formulated to protect the propertied elites against debtor class revolutionaries), just blew me away. Like nothing I’d seen before, but incredibly radical in effect, and very persuasive. Explains a lot about how our government is structured.
Here’s an article that summarizes Dye’s basic theories and analysis:
The Zoh Show Thomas R. Dye 10/24/96
An excerpt: “Professor Dye has made these lists of who’s in power for every administration since 1976, and the quality of the data he supplies makes it easy to see the continuation of these powerful forces from 1940 through today. “My argument,” says Professor Dye, “that industrial wealth and banks and other centers of financial power are influencing government comes essentially from a system in which foundations [receive] large grants from wealthy corporations and in turn fund various policy planning groups.” Groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the Bookings Institution in Washington, the Heritage Foundation in Washington, the American Enterprise Institute and other policy planning groups, according to Professor Dye, really set the agenda for the congress and the president and other governmental agencies. “In other words,” says Dye, “these are the folks that operate sort of behind the governmental reporting that we get. We get reports on bills introduced in congress and what congress does in committee and on the floor and so on. But we don’t get an awful lot of reports in the news media on what the Council on Foreign Relations is planning for us in terms of our international role. What are we doing in terms of NATO expansion and so on, and that’s all really been pretty well planned out ahead by the Council on Foreign Relations before it gets to the news media and before it gets in the President’s speech.”
Interestingly enough (considering what he says in his books, and above), according to MediaTransparency.org The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc. gave him $100,000 back in the mid 1980s to do his research.
Yes, the book does seem to tilt conservative in some ways (particularly in the applying the theory to the analysis of the Vietnam war), but that’s pretty much irrelevant in practical terms. Why did I pick this up? Well, because anyone who is even vaguely awake realizes that American politics is incredibly elitist… a huge percentage of Congress consists of lawyers and millionaires.
Some of the more startling revelations (just so far)… 25% of administration officials for almost the entire second half of the century came from Harvard, alone! A figure consistent across Republican and Democratic administrations!
His analysis jibes with mine - based on various readings, including “The Big Test : The Secret History of the American Meritocracy”, by Nicholas Lehmann, and personal observations, I believe I’ve identified the core “problem” of American politics: REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, whether “liberal” or “conservative”, the people running our country are convinced, to the marrow of their bones, that they DESERVE and are the ONLY PEOPLE COMPETENT, to run the country. And they have nothing but CONTEMPT, when it comes down to it, for the average citizen. This contempt is bred into them by a lifetime of messages reinforcing this idea. Many of them are self-consciously aware of this fact… many others are truly blind to it.
I still remember the day I proposed this theory to a couple of political science students from the local university (93% “liberal” to “moderate”), who agreed with me completely… then turned to the New York Times bestseller list and proceeded to trash the tastes of the average American with a complete lack of irony.
The working class, the service workers, the average wage earning Americans, even the middle class itself, are almost completely unrepresented in the policy making arena, and much less in the policy influencing arena. We are ruled by a “Mandarin” class (as Nicholas Lehmann describes them) that is carefully selected by our educational system, then systematically inculcated with the values of the American elite and convinced of their superiority in the process.
It is no accident that the political dialogue in this country is so narrow, that the Democratic and Republican parties (and even the Greens, as evidenced by our nomination of an investment banker for Governor in California) have such narrow policy differences on fundamental issues of economics, that American politics is far to the “right” economically, of Europe, etc. This is a fundamental product of the system through which our governing elite is selected and trained.
Nicholas Lehmann’s book is profoundly revolutionary and subversive, simply by virtue of the fact that it highlights what is really the most fundamental assumption of American society at this point, the “meritocracy”: that academic success in school, high performance on standardized tests, acceptance into and success at a very small number of schools, is and should be the measure of successful preparation for a career and life. And that those who pass through this winnowing process are inherently superior to, and better qualified, than those who do not (perhaps because their talents lie elsewhere - artistically, socially, physically, etc. or they do not test well or succeed in the standardized institutional educational system).
He implicitly asks us to consider whether or not this is really the criteria by which we determine who is best qualified to run this country, whether or not we are wasting a prodigous amount of talent and unnecessarily limiting our options and perspectives - whether or not these people are, in fact, superior to the rest of us.
Again, the reason why our politics is so barren and devoid of ideas or principle, is because, beneath all the noise and clash of words, there is a fundamental agreement between the various wings of the American elite on principles. Until that changes, all our efforts will be stymied.
