Elitecraft

Autorentext

Marie Moran is Associate Professor in Equality Studies at UCD, specialising in critical social theory, ideology and the politics of inequality. She is the author of Identity and Capitalism and the forthcoming Equality Today. Drawing on the Marxist legacy of Raymond Williams, she has developed a cultural materialist approach to identity, elites and cultural politics, writing regularly on the role of political language in shaping struggles for equality. A former Fulbright Scholar, her work is widely published internationally. She lives in Dublin and is active in Left social movements.

Klappentext

Elitecraft delivers the first comprehensive analysis of elitism as ideology—revealing how "the elite" became the most powerful political faction of our time. It distinguishes three forms of anti-elitism—emancipatory, liberal, and reactionary—and traces how they developed, converged, and collided after 2008. Most crucially, it reconstructs an emancipatory anti-elitism capable of breaking through liberal complacency and reactionary resentment—one that can anchor a renewed egalitarian, anti-capitalist politics for the twenty-first century.

Inhalt

Chapter 1. The Problem of ‘Elites’ for Left Politics
1.1. Introduction: ‘Populist Politics reject a world designed by elites’
1.2. The curious overlap of left and right anti-elitisms in a time of crisis
1.3. Why this is not another book about populism
1.4. On Seeing People as ‘Elites’: The troublesome anatomy of a concept
1.5. Towards a Radical Anti-elitism for the Left: Overview of book

Chapter 2. Elites as Ideology
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Extended Keywords Analysis
2.2.1. Origins
2.2.2. The early social science of elites
2.2.3. Fascism and the Idea of Elites
2.2.4. Elites and the justification of inequality
2.2.5. The emergent pejorative sense
2.2.6. ‘Elites’ out of fashion once more
2.2.7. The return of elites
2.3. The Differentia Specifica of the concept of an elite
2.4. Elites as Ideology
2.4.1. The legitimacy of elite power
2.4.2. The nature of elite power
2.5. Conclusion

Chapter 3. Mapping the Political Terrain: Varieties of anti-elitism
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Finding Terra Firma: Left, Right and Mainstream as orientations to equality
3.2.1. Cleavages and coordinates: Approaches to defining Left and Right
3.2.2. The case for an expansive conception of equality
3.2.3. Rethinking the ‘centre’, political ‘extremes’ and the role of ‘freedom’
3.3. The Politics of Privilege
3.3.1 A Brief Etymology of Privilege
3.3.2 Conservative and Progressive Orientations to Privilege
3.3.3 Privilege and Equality: Uneasy bedfellows
3.3.4 Challenging Privilege on Left and Right
3.4. Varieties of Anti-Elitism: A Framework for analysis
3.4.1. Emancipatory anti-elitism and the Emancipatory Mind
3.4.2. Reactionary Anti-Elitism and the Reactionary Mind
3.4.3. Liberal anti-elitism and the Liberal Mind
3.5. Conclusion

Chapter 4. A Practical History of Anti-Elitisms
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Challenging privilege in a world of elites: the origins of emancipatory and reactionary anti-elitism
4.2.1. The contradictions of the American People’s Party
4.2.2. A Post-Depression politics of hope
4.2.3. A fascist harbinger of reactionary anti-elitisms to come
4.3. The issue is Privilege!: Reactionary anti-elitism consolidates
4.3.1. A ‘privileged’ New Left under fire
4.3.2. Anti-elitism shifts to the Right: The perfected reactionary anti-elitism of Wallace, Nixon, Reagan, Thatcher
4.4. Neoliberal hegemony and Liberal Anti-elitism: and the curious case of anti-elitist elites
4.5. Conclusion

Chapter 5. The Return of Elites: Competing Anti-elitisms in New Populist Times
5.1 Introduction: Meltdown! Global Financial Crisis and the Return of Elites
5.2 A New (Old) Enemy: The Financial Elite Reappears
5.3 Competing ‘Populisms’ on Left and Right
5.3.1 The Emancipatory Impulse Flourishes: The Movements of the Squares
5.3.2 Right-wing populisms on the march
5.3.3 The Case for a Left Populism
5.4 Emancipatory Hopes, Reactionary Gains
5.4.1 From Corbyn and Sanders to Brexit and Trump
5.4.2 Convergence and Confusion Reigns
5.5 Reclaiming the language of the Left
5.6 On the value of Left Populism for an Emancipatory anti-elitism
5.7 Conclusion: Beyond Populism

Chapter 6. Dilemmas of Anti-Elitism for the Left
6.1. Introduction: Converging anti-elitisms in a post-populist moment
6.2. On Liberal Elites and The Paradox of Liberal Anti-Elitism
6.2.1. ‘Clean’ and ‘Dirty’ Meritocracy
6.2.2. Check your privilege!: Deference politics as liberal anti-elitism
6.2.3. Beyond Lawn Placard Politics
6.3. On ‘Reaction’ on the Left and Right
6.3.1. Liberals, ‘Wokes’ and ‘symbolic analysts’: The strange puzzle of social justice ‘elites’
6.3.2. From anti-elitism to an attack on social justice
7.3.3. Getting to the Heart of Reaction: Defending Social Justice
6.4. On the ‘White Working Class’ and the ‘Left Behind’
6.4.1. On questions of economic hardship and cultural disdain
6.4.2. Towards a Left intervention
6.4.3. Defending worker’s rights and the welfare state
6.5. Conclusion: Towards an Emancipatory Anti-Elitism

Chapter 7. Rescuing a Concept of Elites for Emancipatory Anti-elitism
7.1. Introduction: Overcoming Slippage and Limits; Rethinking the concept of an ‘elite’
7.2. Rethinking Elite Power
7.2.1. Questions of agency and pluralism
7.2.2. Harnessing Left Scholarship to reclaim a critical concept of an elite
7.3. Aligning elite analysis with class analysis
7.3.1. Some reflections on privilege as a bridging concept
7.3.2. Back to the ruling class: Aligning elite analysis with Marxist class analysis
7.4. Towards a popular emancipatory anti-elitism for the Left

Chapter 8. An Emancipatory Anti-Elitism for the Left
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Sketching an emancipatory anti-elitism for the twenty-first century
8.2.1. Developing a Critique of ‘Liberal Elites’ without throwing out social justice
8.2.2. A Leftist re-articulation of the Left Behind
8.2.3. On anti-capitalism and class politics, again
8.3. Emancipatory anti-elitism and left politics: some final reflections