Gaetano Mosca and the Theory of the Ruling Class ® 1. Gaetano Mosca’s fame is based on his theory of the ruling class (#). This fame is certainly not on the wane, to judge from ° the attention paid to this concept by a distinguished American scholar, James H. Meisel (2), in a recent work which, next to the book by the Italian writer Delle Piane, is the most complete survey of the question, Mosca remained true to the theory of the ruling class all his life. He enunciated it in his first work of any importance which was written when he was twenty-six, Sulla teorica dei governi ¢ (*) Gaetano Mosca was born at Palermo on April x, 1858, and from 1898 taught as Professor of constitutional law at the University of Turin, He was transferred in 1923 to the University of Rome where he lectured on the history of political theories, and stayed there until his retirement in 1933. He was elected to Parliament in 1908, was Underseccetery for the Colonies from r9r4 to 1916, and was made a Senator in 191g. He died in Rome on 8 Noveruber, 1941. Me attained fame at 2 very ently age with a scathing criticiom on the working of the Italian parliamentary system: Sulla teoriea def govern? ¢ sul governo parlementare (1884). This made a great stir. Later he wrote a number of essays on constitutional law, the most important of which is Le costitusioni moderne (1887). He then published, in’ r8g6, his major work — the Elementi di scienza politica which he revised and expanded in the second edition (923), This work gives a complete exposé of his political thinking and of his jnter- ptetations of history. His last work Storia delle dottrine politiche, the definitive edition of which came ut in 1937, isa book for students and is comprised of the lectuces given by him at the University of Rome. ‘The volume appearing after his death Partis! ¢ sindacati nella erisi del regime parlamentare (494g) contains various essays of which the most interesting ase Wi principio ariscocratico ¢ democratico (1903) and Lo stato-citt® antico ¢ lo stato rappresen- tative moderna (1924). A large aumber of his minor writings, including the Teorica, have recently been brought out in the commemorative volume entitled Cid che la storie posrebbe insegnare (1958). OE his writings on current politics, a collection of articles attacking the war in Libya is particularly interesting. It is called Italia e Libia, Considerasioni politiche (2912). (%) Note by translator: The Ttalian expression “classe politica", has been translated by “ruling class (2) The Myth of the Ruling Class, Gacteno Mosca and the Blite, Aan Arbor, the University of Michigan Press, 2958.4 Banca Nazionale del Lavoro sul governo parlamentare (1884) (2); he worked out the theory more fully in a book of his later period, the Elementi di scienza politica (1896). He corrected and completed it in the Parte Seconda which he added to the Elementi in the second edition (1923) (3). And he gave a telling summing up of it in his last work, the Storia delle dottrine politiche (1937) (4). Pareto had formulated a similar theory of the lites, first in an article in 1g00, and later in his Systemes socialistes. Mosca insisted with some feeling on having been the first to make the discovery (5). But, despite his long meditation on this subject and subsequent revisions, Mosca never provided a systematic, properly articulated exposé of his doctrine, in which the various components were logically arranged and exa- mined from all points of view. He dealt with it on various occa- sions, He made no distinction, except casually and incompletely, between the various headings under which methodical investigations of the subject could have been carried out, and contented himself with an elementary classification, It was only when he discussed it for the last time that he made a clear distinction between two types of problems, those regarding the recruitment of the ruling class and those regarding its organization (6). But he did not feel (2) T quote this work from the version in the recent collection of Mosca's writings, Gid che la storia potrebbe insegoare (What history could teach us), Scristi di scisnsa politica, Milan, Givffré, 1958 (from now on referzed to as Teorica). On the ruling class, cf. pp. 31-56. (G) L quote from the fourth edition in two volumes (Bati, Latecza, 19§3) (henceforth referred to as Elersens#), On the roling class, cf. especially 1, pp, 78-1953 I, pp. 1-153 95-146. (4) This work is a revised and corrected edition of the Lesioni di storia delte isitwziont ¢ delle dotrine politiche, Rome, Castellani, 1532 (henceforth referred to as Storia), Cf, M, neuix Pian, Bibliografia di Gaetena Mosca, Siena, Circolo giuridica dell"Universitt, 1949, ‘Nos, 72 and 77. On the ruling class, cf. pp. 339-353. (6) We will not revert again to the famous controversy between Mosca and Pareto about the Jatter’s denial of Mosea’s priority ond: Mosca's accusation of plagiarism. T refer to the exhaustive and balanced treatment in Meisel’s work already quoted, pp. 170-183, and to the ‘notes by T. Giscatons Monaco, Pareto ¢ Sorel, Padua, Cedam, 1960, T, pp. 24-27. At most it may be added that it és clear from the recent publication of the Leltere a Maffeo Pentaleani that Pareto detested Mosca and had no esteem for him even, before the latter launched out fon the “minor war of words” and publicly regretted, in his introductory address in. rgo2 It principio aristoorssico © # democratico, the * strange lapse of memory” of the distin- guished professor of the University of Lausanne ” (in Partiti ¢ sindacati nella crisi del regime parlamentare, Bari, Laterza, 1949, p. 11). Ina letter of 23 July x900, Pareto writes to Panta. Jeoni: * How naive of you to believe chat an attiele can do any good! Mosca has 10 doxbe hhis own reasons for speaking ill of mathematics, probably because he Knows none. Tf he is the one wha writes about politics, he is balloon full of hot air” (Lestere a Meffeo Panta- Jeoni, Rome, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, 1960, U, p. 324). (© Of. espocially the concluding chapter of the Storia, pp. 339 et seg. Gaetano Mosca and the Theory of the Ruling Class . 5g the need to gather together the scattered members of his theories into an organic whole, For this reason, an exposé of Mosca’s theory should begin by arranging the material in proper order. If only to avoid interpreta- tions which are cither oversimple or oversubtle, 1 have felt it useful to group this material in a sequence of subjects which may serve to give the reader an immediate and fairly precise idea both of the complexity of the research, that is, of the various levels involved, and of the gaps in it, that is, of the unfinished state in which. the author left it. The aspects of the ruling class which I propose to illustrate by passages drawn freely from his various works are as follows: 1) composition and formation; 2) extension; 3) renewal and replacement; 4) organization and means of exercising power. I need hardly say that the line of demarcation between these aspects is not always sharp, but this is an observation which will undoubtedly occur to the reader himself. 2. A few observations on terminology are called for. Right from his first book, Mosca chose the expression “ ruling class” to indicate the phenomenon with which he was so much concerned. In the Teorica, after having described the phenomenon of the ruling minority, he concludes: “This special class will from now on be referred to as the ruling class” (7), Although the expression “ élite” used by Pareto finally prevailed (with the result that the expression “theory of the élites” was used in such a wide sense as to include Mosca’s theories of the ruling class as well), the expression “ ruling class”, as Mosca himself rightly observed in the Parte Seconda of the Elementi, has the advantage over “ élite” that it does not imply a positive judgment on the members of that class (8). “ Elite” in common parlance is a value expression and, as such, unsuitable for scientific language, in which preference should be given to () Teorica, p. 35. . (© Having said that the ruling class comprises those people best suited to govern, ‘which does not mean that they ate the best intellectually or, even more, moorally ", Mosca commented in a footnote: “It is for this reason that we feel that the expression < élite? adopted by Pareto is the wrong one for what we had termed ‘ruling class? some years back”, Blementi, It, p. 177). The problem of the valve to be assigned to the term “ élite ‘was discussed on several occasions at the IVth World Congress of Sociology (September 7950), The relevant texts are given in the volume Le élites polisicke, Bari, Laterza, r961, especially in the papers by Gatlin, Lavau, and Sartori.6 Banca Nazionale del Lavoro neutral expressions such as “ruling class”, ‘The expression “ ruling class” is used nowadays in everyday language and by historians (we cannot yet speak of a language of political science in Italy, as there is no tradition of studies in this field), not so much in the sense of an organized minority group as of the total of those who habitually engage in politics. It refers not so much to the phenomenon, which is specially stressed by the theory of the élite, of the ruling minorities, as to the phenomenon, cqually important and deserving of study, of the professional or almost professional nature of politics ii modern parliamentary systems. Although Mosca adopted right from the start the expression “ruling class”, he often liked to use synonymous expressions without giving too much thought to the need’ to define them clearly, This may be regarded as a first sign of the rather rough state in which Mosca left his theory, even though he returned to it on a number of occasions. In the Teorica we find * dominating or ruling class” (page 36). Elsewhere he uses “upper classes” (Elementi, I, p. 4g, 153); “ governing class” (Elementi, I, p. 94, 153); “the ruling clique ” (Elementi, I, 78); “ organized minority ” (Teorica, p. 343 Elementi, 1, p. 80); * governing minority” (Ele- menti, I, p. 83). One’s immediate reaction to a concept to which so many different names are indiscriminately applied is that it has not yet been very strictly defined, but the use of expressions other than “ruling class” is usually to be explained by Mosca’s need of two antithetical expressions to define the basic distinction in any society between those who govern and those who are governed. Whereas the expression “ruling class” does not enable him to define the rest of the population by antithesis, the other expressions lent themselves to a description ‘of that section as “ dominated, directed, lower or governed class” or as the “unorganized ot governed majority ”. 3. The first point which I have termed the composition of the ruling class includes the study of the qualities which members of a given social group possess or should possess in order to belong (or aspire to belong) to the ruling class. By studying this question, we can say whether there are qualities which distinguish those forming the ruling class, and what they are. Mosca’s reply to the first question is in the affirmative. “The ruling minorities are usually formed in such a way that the indi- Ke Gactano Mosca and the Theory of the Ruling Clase 7 viduals composing them can be distinguished from the mass of the governed by certain qualities which give them a certain material and intellectual or even moral superiority...3 in other words, they must have some prerequisites, real or apparent, which are highly respected and can be effectively applied in the society in which they live” (9). These qualities are not always the same ones; they may change with history. As a result, it is possible to distinguish various types of ruling classes according to the different qualities which characterize their members. Replying to the second question, Mosca distinguishes, both in the Teorica and in the Elementi (10), three qualities which, in varying degrees, give access in different societies to the ruling class — martial ability, wealth, membership of the priesthood. From these qualities or status flow the three forms — military, money and priestly aristocracy. Less prominent among the characteristic qualities of a ruling class, according to Mosca, is culture. To be precise, he makes two reservations to this statement: 1) culture may become an important political force “ only in a very advanced stage of civilization ”; 2) what has political value “is not so much knowledge in itsclf as the practical applications which may be made of it to the general advantage (11). However, when Mosca took off his scientific hat and put on his political and moralizing one, he expressed a longing for a society in which culture would prevail oyer the other qualities in the composition of the ruling class to the point of regarding the ideal scientific policy as one which could obviously be worked out only by a class of scientific politicians working hand in hand with experts om poli- tics (12). It is possible to belong to a ruling class not only because of one’s qualities but also of one’s birth and because one is born into a family in which those qualities were possessed by one’s forebears, (0) Flementi, 1, p. 83, In the Teoricd: * Any individual who belongs to the ruling class should have, and in some cases is presumed to have, merits and qualities to which, in the society in which he fives, most men attach great importance and which ere not possessed by everybody * (p. 42). (10) Teoriea, pp. 42-46; Elementi, 1, pp. 83-04. (a1) Elementi, 1, pp. 92-53. In the Teoriea, he had, perhaps even more naively, also considered personal merit among the “ considerations governing the recruitment ” of the ruling class, Merit was also constituted of * the different kinds of special knowledge” which make an individual “ more or Jess suited for the various offices of a country's public life (p. 49). (22) I drew attention to this idea of Mosca’s in the essay Gactono Mosca ¢ Ia scicnza politics, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Issue No. 45, 1960, pp. ™4 ef seg.8 Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Indeed, where hereditary castes have been formed, Mosca observes, birth is the only criterion which governs entry into a class or exclusion from it (13). Here, the problem of the composition of the ruling class converges with that of its formation and transfor- mation. For the time being, we need only ask what is the relation between membership of a ruling class as‘a result of birth and the possession of the allegedly superior qualities. Mosca rules out the more extreme theory which links the two factors so closely as to imply that anyone born into the ruling class thercby automatically possesses superior qualities, In this connection, he quotes the theories of Gobincau and Gumplowicz, but it is only to reject them. How- ever, he admits that members of an aristocracy possess certain special qualities peculiar to the ruling classes to a greater extent even if they have obtained these qualities not through blood but through upbringing, which tends to develop certain intellectual and moral gifts rather than others. : 4. Tt would seem that Mosca never attributed great importance to the problem of how far the ruling class extended, He merely repeated that the ruling class constituted a minority, but he did not and could not go beyond vague references to this minority, as for example when he spoke of “those few dozen people who con- trol the levers of the state machine” (rq). But there are minorities and minorities. Even in a democratic state, the ruling class is a minority, but it is a bigger minority than that in an autocratic regime, and we may well ask whether in such a case the difference of quantity does not also imply a difference of quality. The size of the minority in a democratic system depends on various factors: 1) the existence of several political classes in mutual competition, with the result that, side by side with an existing élite, there is always a potential or reserve élite; 2) the multiplication of the organs of the central authority (parliament as well as the privy council, two chambers instead of one, etc.); 3) the creation of focal government bodies side by side with those of the central government. (13) The problem is dealt with in the Teorfea, pp. 46-48; and in Blementi, I, pp. g4-t00. (14) Elementi, Tl, p, 122, Elsewhere he writes: “Moreover the formation of a group of pereons which, depending on the circumstances, may include twe or three dozen of even @ hundred individuals... is something that is to be found da all autocracics, indeed in all forms of political regime” (Ilementi, H, p. 108). wee. Gactano Mosca and the Theory of the Ruling Class 9 What attracted Mosca’s attention in his later period was another phenomenon, As the state extended its territory in the transition from the small city state of ancient times to the large Roman State, or lsc strengthened its structure in the transition from the medieval feudal State to the modern bureaucratic one, the “few dozen per- sons” became insufficient to win and retain power. This observa- tion led Mosca to widen his approacti and study the ruling class's auxiliaries, what he called the second most numerous stratum of the governing class, or the middle class (15), and he termed it “ the backbone of all the great political organizations” (16). In primitive autocratic regimes, this second stratum is almost always formed of priests and warriors, In organized autocratic regimes, it is formed by the bureaucracy (hence the identification between streamlined autocracy and bureancratized autocracy); in electoral regimes, it is identified, or rather should be identified, with the electorate, (At this point, Mosca passes from a scientific observation to a political proposal), This recognition of the existence of a second stratum of the governing class should have impelled Mosca to work out a more precise definition of the concept of ruling class in the strict sense of the word and of the relations between the first and second stra- tum, It may be asked whether the discovery of the second stratum embracing the whole of the middle class in the widest sense of the word does not end up by distorting the real significance of the theory of the ruling minorities? It does not seem that Mosca was concerned about this difficulty. On the contrary, in the only section in which he dwells on the nature of the relation between these two strata (17), he gives the impression, in the examples cited, that the ruling class in a narrow sense of the word, has now, in order to make way for the second stratum, shrunk so far as to be synonymous with the one supreme head (the Roman Emperors, George III of England, Louis XIV and so on), The second stratum. thus includes the first, or at least cannot easily be distinguished from it. 5. Any ruling class has a different life-span. Heredity, election and ‘cooption are the normal procedures by which it perpetuates (15) Elementi, ML, pp. 110 ef seg. (36) Elementi, UL, p. 122, (37) Blemensi, ML, pp. 147-152.: | : | | | | : 10 Banea Nazionale del Lavoro itself and renews itself (it can perpetuate itself without renewing itsclf or it perpetuates itself by renewing itself or renewes itself purely and simply). Mosca deals at length with and devotes particular attention to the first of these processes. He singles out two tendencies. On the one hand, all ruling classes have a tendency to become, de facto if not de jure, hereditary. So much so that, when a certain de jure state has been consolidated, it has certainly been preceded by a de facto state (18), On. the other hand, there are always new forces tending to replace the old ones. According to whether the first or the second tendency prevails, the ruling class becomes closed and rigid or renews itself with varying degrees of rapidity (19), In the second volume of the Elementi, Mosca calls the first tendency aristocratic and the second one democratic (20), and examines at length the value and advantages of both possibilities. He is opposed both to the pure aristocratic tendency (perpetuation without renewal) and to the revolutionary democratic tendency (renewal without perpetuation), Both are extreme cases. He repeatedly expressed his sympathy with the type of society in which there is a certain equilibrium between the two tendencies. He recognizes the need for the ruling class to have a certain stability and not to have to ¢ “ substantially renewed with each new generation” (21), but he also secs that it would benefit by drawing new blood from the lower classes, provided this docs not take place too rapidly and too extensively (22). As between the two fundamental tendencies, Mosca showed clearly that he considered the former the mest im- portant of the two, at least to make possible a correct understanding of the course of history. The latter was merely a useful corrective. He never speaks explicitly or in detail about cooption (23), but from his ideas as a whole it is clear that he regarded it as the normal method (and the most useful one socially) for the renewal of the ruling classes, On several occasions, he returns to the ques- (38) Blementi, 1, p. 96. Cf. in particular the article 1! principio aristecratico c il demo- eratica (1goa), in Partiti ¢ sindacati nella orisi det regime parlamentare, op. cit., p. 2% (19) Elementi, 1, p. xoa. (20) Blersenti, Il, p. 97. Gn) Blemensi, I, p. 139. (2a) Blementi, UI, p. xgp. (23) But one can find expressions in his work of this kind: ... ‘The initial training of the governing nucleus for 2 new political of religious doctrine takes place through spontaneous cooption ” (Blemendi, I, 9. 270). a Gaetano Mosca and the Theory of the Ruling Class n tion of the continuity of the aristocracy and of its decadénce (24) as a result of its gradual isolation from the other classes and also its gradual transformation into a closed caste. Hence his. positive judgment on those aristocracies which have been able to renew themselves by drawing fresh: energy from the lower classes, In putting forward ideas for reforms which will correct the main defects of the parliamentary system (the interference of members of parliament in civil service matters), he proposes that new men be coopted from outside the official circles. These men must not “expect to be confirmed in their appointment by begging for votes, by obtaining the approval of a committee or of an clectoral boss” (25), On the other hand, Mosca does discuss the electoral method in several passages not only of his works on political science but also of his writings on constitutional law and militant politics, But he discusses it in connection not so much with the problem of the renewal of the ruling class as with that of its organization, and hence we will defer consideration of it to the next section. 6. Of all the problems regarding the ruling class, the one to which Mosca reverts most often is that of its organization, Right from the start, as we have already observed, he regarded the ruling class as “an organized minority”. He thought that, although it was a minority, it was in a ‘position to keep in power only because it was organized. “A hundred people who always act in harmony with each other will be triumphant over a thousand individuals who cannot reach agreement among themselves. And at the same time it will be much casier for the former to act in harmony and to.reach an understanding because they are a hundred and not a thousand” (26). By “organization” he meant the sum total of the arrangements made by the upper class in order to maintain its cohesion and to exercise its power. This enabled him to distin- guish between the various forms of the state according to the dif- ferent ways in which the different political classes in different times and places had organized themselves and hence exercised their power. Having abandoned the old distinction of governments into (24) Blementi, 1, pp. 101 et seq.; pp. 144 of seg. 5) Elementi, I, p. 388. (26) Blementi, I, p. 83.| Py Banca Nazionale del Lavoro monarchies aristocracies and democracies, he regarded four forms of political organization as specially characteristic, from classical antiquity down to our own time — the city state of Greece and of the oldest part of Roman history; the bureaucratic state, of which the Roman Empire was an early example, and which was repre- sented by the absolute monarchies of the 17th and 18th centuries; the feudal state peculiar to the barbarian societies of the middle ages; and the modern parliamentary state born in r7th century England and then transplanted with varying success to the Con- tinent (27). In a Jater synthesis, Mosca thought he could identify two basic principles in the welter of historical forms of government. These he called the autocratic and liberal principles according to whether authority was transmitted from above down to the lower officials or whether on the contrary it was delegated from below to higher authority. In the modern parliamentary state which was derived from the grafting of the liberal principle on the bureaucratic state of the absolute monarchies, both principles were present in a blend which was not always completely successful. It should be noted that this distinction between the two typical forms of political organization or of the transmission and exercise of power by the ruling class must not be confused with the distinction, set out in the previous section, between two methods of renewing the ruling class. The combination of the two distinctions may thus give rise to four ideal types of state: 1) aristocratic-autocratic; 2) aristocratic- liberal; 3) democratic-autocratic; 4) democratic-liberal. "The liberal principle is characterized by the relatively perfect organization of an electoral system. But a distinction must be made between the case in which ‘the electorate coincides roughly with the ruling class (as in the Republic of Venice and in that of seven- teenth-century Poland) and the case where the electorate is greater than that class. In the former case, the elective method is not used to achieve the renovation of the ruling class but to provide an internal (27) Por the distinction between the various forms of political organization, cf. espe- sally Elemensi, L, pp. 123-1323 II, chapters 2 and 3; and the introductory address Lo stato- Gitta antico © lo stato rappresentative modemo (1924), in Parsi e sindacati, pp. 37-60. In the Storia, he distinguishes between only three types — the feudal state, the borenucratie state and the city-state. ‘The modern parliamentary state could be considered as produced by grafting the characteristic features of the city-state on to the modern bureaucratic state, Gaetano Mosce and the ‘Theory of the Ruling Class 3 rotation (and hence it does not work in favour of the democratic tendency but in favour of the aristocratic one). In the second case, it might be useful for the renewal of the ruling class if the class holding powers of direction and compulsion did not have at its disposal a variety of means of coercing the electors. In other words, where the electoral method may be useful it does not contribute to renovation, and where it might help renovation it is at most a pretence. In Mosca’s study of the electoral principle, it is never possible to distinguish clearly between scientific judgments and political appreciations. He used to repeat that it was not the clectors who chose the members of parliament but the members who got themselves chosen. It is hard to say whether this observation, which he regarded as strictly scientific, fortified his anti-democratic atti- tude or whether his firmly rooted conservative instinct induced him to dwell on the negative aspects of the electoral system, 7. True, it has often been objected that Mosca’s theory is an ideology and more precisely that it is an ideology masquerading as a scientific theory. We all know that Mosca had his own political ideas, those of an incorrigible conservative. And he himself never made any bones about it, He had the conservative historian’s bitter realization of human vices and wretchedness, He was, or he claimed to be, a realist, a man who has no faith in the power of ideals in history and who regards history only as a perpetual clash of ambitions, interests and passions. And yet, if one takes a closer look at the matter, the theory of the ruling class represents the beginning, or, if one prefers, the first outline of modern political science conceived of as objective research into political phenomena. Political science could not be born except from a realistic attitude (the fact that a realistic attitude is usually linked with a conservative ideology is a point which we need not go into here). By “real” we mean the opposite of “ideal” and “apparent”, In the antithesis between “ real ” and “ ideal ”, historical realism means the devaluation of ideals as propellant forces in history, and the concentration of attention solely on what men are instead of what they delieve they are. In the antithesis between. “ real” and “ appa- rent”, historical realism means the devaluation of the great figures and of the institutional forms as significant historical data, and the search for the collective forces which move beneath the surface,4 Banca Nazionale del Lavoro In onder to assert itself, political science necded to discover Constant in the evolution of political societies which would ovide & broad initial generalization, however provisional. “The eee’ of'@ culing class, composed of an organized minority which held need more than any other datum which had been ascertai: i then. There are frequent passages in which Mosca rave stent to the value and scientific interest of his discovery, and implies that only by basing itself on the study of the ruling Class cant research clear the ground of the deeply rooted prejudices whieh, fad hitherto hampered the development of politics as a science. In the very first pages of the early Teorica, he put forward the new theor of the correction of a “scientific error”, Ge. the traditional distinction between the forms of government) (28). In the fest volume of because, unlike other theories which had been irret i by the progress of historical studies’ this concept ve eet from 4 priori principles but was derived exclusively from an un- Prejudiced and ruthless observation of the facts, Criticizing the tlistinction made by Spencer between military and industrial states eciterated the proposition that this distinction rested “on weet” @ priori suppositions which did not stand up to a realistic examina. tion” (31). The theory of the tuling class, having met this test, could be adopted as the fist chapter of a scientife study of politics, 8. The concept of the ruling cl | Ing class was not only the expressi of an ideology but the core of a scientific theory of poles, "This is confirmed by the fact that, as has been tepeatedly observed, it Was accepted as a useful tool for historical analysis and docraat adjustments even by democratic and Progressive writers, The dif- (28) Teoriea, p. 33. (29) Blementi, I, p. Bo, Go) Blementi, Il, p. 159. Gx) Elementi, 1, p. 230. Gaetano Mosca and the ‘Theory of the Ruling Class 15 ference between a conservative attitude and a progressive one does not consist in the acceptance or rejection of the concept of the ruling class, but in the different way of solving the problems regard- ing the four points to which we have reduced the analysis of Mosca’s thought, that is, the composition, extension, replacement and organ- ization of the ruling class. As regards the first point, what distinguishes a democratic ideology from a conservative one is the rejection of any form of hereditary transmission of power. The democratic ideal, if taken to its logical extreme, calls for the total exclusion of the so-called privilege of birth from every sector of social life and not only from that of the training of the ruling class. In other words, it is the substitution of the value of merit for that of rank, To be democratic, it is not necessary to disavow the theory of the ruling class, It is sufficient to admit it and to claim that a ruling class may be formed by other than hereditary means. As to the second point, it has already been observed in the fourth section that a democratic society is distinguished from an aristocratic one by the greater number of the people forming the ruling class, even if this ex- pansion will never be sufficient to transform the minority into a majority and to make the definition of democracy as government by the people, by everyone, by the majority, a very convincing one. As to the third point, that is, renewal, Mosca noted two main ten- dencies on the part of the ruling class. There was either a tendency to seal itself off with a consequent hardening of the arteries, or to open its doors and bence initiate a process of renovation, He called the first one aristocratic and the second democratic. Here the demo- cratic attitude is shown by the desire for a society in which the abolition of the privilege of birth, accompanied by an economic policy which aims at equality of opportunity, facilitates the constant and rapid access of new blood to the ruling-class. From the insti- tutional point of view, a democratic regime, according to a common formula, is the one in which the replacement of even the whole of the ruling class can be effected without bloodshed, or, to put the point somewhat less dramatically, without revolutionary upheavals. In other words, the change is effected by the method of legal opposition and by the substitution of a government crisis, which is within the constitution, for a revolutionary break which is outside it, Lastly, as regards the fourth point (the organization of power),16 Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Mosca again recognized two alternatives, which, while retaining the ideal of a ruling class as an organized minority, help to establish another difference between a conservative and a progressive ideology. This minority, which in any regime is always a minority, may justify its power as coming from above (theory of divine right of sovereigns, theory of traditional power or of historical prescription) or as derived from below (contractual theories), One of the most common formulae of democratic ideologies is that of power founded on the general consensus where it appears obvious that the role of the majority is not that of exercising power but of agreeing to others exercising it. At most, it should be added that an occasional consensus is not sufficient to stamp a regime as democratic but that the periodical confirmation by this consensus is essential. 9g. I have tried to clarify the point that what distinguishes a conservative ideology from a progressive one is not the acceptance or refusal of the concept of a ruling class but the different attitude towards the problems of its composition, extension, renewal and. organization, because this helps us to understand Mosca’s political conservativism. For he was not a conservative gua theorist of the ruling class but qua defender and advocate of conservative ideas in almost all those situations in which it becomes permissible and useful, as we have seen in the previous section, to distinguish between a conservative attitude and a progressive one. To take the first point first, Mosca’s political ideal was certainly not that of a hereditary aristocracy. But, right from his first book, he contrasted the privilege of birth with that of merit and longed for a society in which intelligence and culture would be the basic virtues of the ruling class. But he never went as far as to desire ot propose that the privileges of birth should be completely abolished, He realized that this privilege tends to be reconstituted in every society as soon as it rests on a stable basis and as a ruling class has power firmly in its hands, And even the electoral system does not succeed in doing away with privilege (32). He was therefore led to stress the advantages as well as the disadvantages of a here- ditary system; the former consisted principally in the fact that the 2) In the Teorica he refers to the “extremely numerous cases in which elective offices hhave constantly been reserved for the same families”