Why America's Two-Party System Will Never Threaten the True Political Elites

why America's two-party system will never threaten the true political elites by Ryan McMicken.

Whenever a new U.S. president is sworn in, media pundits and court historians

gush about the supposed peaceful transfer of power that is taking place.

This has become a key tenant of the mythology and ideology surrounding democracy,

that governing elites willfully abandon their control over the machinery of the state

in response to election outcomes. Indeed, this narrative about democracy is absolutely

foundational to the perceived legitimacy of democracy. The contention that elections lead to a

peaceful transfer of power reinforces the idea that the governing elites are determined by elections

and therefore by the will of the people. If we the people vote for a new group of rulers,

then the old leaders will step aside. A new group will take over. At least that's how the story

goes. The first problem with this myth is that there is no will of the people. This is a fantasy

that not even mainstream political scientists believe. The notion of the general will is simply

a doctrine of a civic religion that is employed to claim that elections grant government officials

a mandate to rule. The absurdities of political representation and the will of the people

are problematic for sure, but in this column I want to address the central claim of the myth

of the peaceful transfer of power, namely that power is meaningfully transferred from one group

of governing elites to another. It is indeed true that in the United States, elected members of

two major political parties rotate in and out of government offices. These elected officials,

however, are only the public face of the actual governing elite, which very much retains power

before and after the ostensible transfer of power from one group of elected officials to another.

Signs of this reality can be found in how policies change very little in spite of alleged

transfers of power. Yes, some less significant policy areas experience changes as the regime

sanctioned political parties circulate. These include culture war policies such as abortion

and DEI jobs at universities, but policy areas that significantly augment the ruling elites'

financial power, most notably foreign policy, central banking, and major welfare state programs,

such as Medicare, are largely untouchable by the elected government. Moreover, access to positions

of elected office are controlled. Specifically, only certain political parties are allowed

to actually compete for elected positions of importance. Access to positions of power within

the parties themselves, with only a handful of exceptions, are restricted to candidates

acceptable to the governing elite. Politics isn't a friendly game and power is not surrendered

easily. Americans tend to have a relatively cheerful view of the political system. Some would

call it naïve. Many Americans even believe, if they have opinions about it all, that ruling elites

are motivated by noble desires such as helping the poor, keeping people safe, or otherwise doing

good works. If one believes this, it is much easier to believe that governing elites will willingly

and peacefully give up their positions of power if they lose an election. This strains the bounds

of plausibility when we consider the true nature of the process of obtaining and wielding political power.

For insights into this, we have to look beyond the Anglo-Sphere and its rather optimistic and

innocent view of political institutions. For a darker and more realistic and more accurate view,

we can look to the Italian sociologist and economist, Wilfredo Pareto. Pareto understood that

ruling elites within a democratic regime oversee a complex system of patrons and clients who assist

each other in benefiting from what Frederick Bastia called legal plunder. This process of exploiting

the masses for the benefit of the ruling elite and its clients exists in every modern state,

but the process does not work the same way in a democracy as in a dictatorship or absolute monarchy.

In Pareto's view, the ruling elite in a democracy is relatively large and must manage a large

and diverse network of clients, which are bought off and otherwise encouraged to support the elite.

Because of the size and complexity of the elite class, it is unwieldy. Unlike the Marxists,

Pareto does not point to any single industry or economic class as representative of the ruling elites.

He certainly does not believe any single individual as a key decision maker.

Rather, the governing class can include both the class of entrepreneurs and industrialists,

alongside labor groups and government employees. The challenge for the ruling elite lies in establishing

a position of patronage in relation to each group in such a way as to create a symbiosis

among all groups so they all accept the ruling elite as ultimately beneficial.

Consequently, the system of ruling elites is characterized by Pareto biographer,

SE finer as a connection of centers of influence and patronage. And in the modern state,

these are increasingly based on economic interest. These various power centers are

forever quarreling and competing with one another, but nevertheless have sufficient cohesion

to warrant calling them a class. How does this come about, emphatically not by conspiracy?

That is, the ruling elite does not function as a conspiratorial party with a specific and directed

singular goal. According to Pareto because of its size and complexity, it would be a mistake for

observers to assume that the ruling elite has a single will implementing preconceived plans by

logical procedures. It is not a concrete unit. Nonetheless, cohesion is achieved due to economic

self-interest as finer puts it. Such cohesion as it possesses comes about in three ways.

In the first place, all the principles, that is, the heads of each cluster of influence and

patronage, live to some extent by taking in each other's washing. Next, insofar as they are all

actuated by economic self-interest, they naturally tend to act in a common direction.

Finally, they are made the more coherent by their inner government,

a political party or a cabinet which controls the public authorities.

The maintenance of the system and thus the maintenance of the ruling elites power depends on

constant efforts to manage and manipulate clients with both cunning and large s. In a democratic system,

the use of violence is generally avoided, but not off limits, as violence signals a breakdown

of the managerial skills of the elite. The complexity of the system, which Pareto called

Pluto democracy, illustrates how implausible it is to think that the ruling class will simply give

a power if it loses an election. The amount of time, effort, ingenuity and resources that

goes into sustaining the power of the governing elite will not be willfully thrown aside.

After all, the stakes are incredibly high as the governing elites powers are critical to augmenting

the power, wealth, honors, and prestige of its members and their families. It would be absurd

to contemplate handing these privileges over to a competing counter elite every few years because

of the outcome of an election. This helps explain why there are so rarely any substantial changes

to the core government institutions that function at the core of the patronage system.

Defense spending, foreign interventions, too big to fail, Medicare policies and welfare spending

are all central to continuing the patron client relationships and buttressing the ruling elites

access to resources while neutralizing political opposition. Two types of political parties,

pro-regime versus revolutionary. Consequently, party politics within modern democracies is

allowed to play out only to the extent that the party's function within the superstructure

established by the governing elite. This means parties participate in supposedly competitive

elections, but it also means that only select political parties are allowed to participate.

Thus, Pareto classifies political parties this way. In our Western political systems, parties

are divisible into two broad classes, one, parties which alternate with one another in government,

two, intransigent, uncompromising parties which do not get into government,

the parties which do not get into government are often more honest but also more fanatical

and sectarian than parties which do exercise power. Pareto concludes that the moderate and

compromising parties that rotate in and out of government are part of the governing elite.

On the other hand, these parties that are uncompromising and fanatical are not permitted to be

part of the governing elite since they wish to wreck and overturn the system. It was only these

latter parties, finer notes, that were counted by Pareto as a genuine counter-relate.

For this reason, it is absurd to equate Pareto's elites and counter-relates with the struggles

of labor and conserve, or Republican and Democrat. Both are parts of their respective governing

classes. To ensure that the governing parties cannot threaten the networks of the governing elite,

access to the parties and to positions of leadership within the parties are controlled.

For insights into this, we can consult another Italian,

Gaetano Mosca, who notes that voters only are permitted to choose their representatives

from a menu presented to them by the political parties. There are numerous safeguards put in place

by these parties to ensure that the parties cannot be used as a tool of any true counter-relate.

Thus, for Mosca and for Pareto, the elite-approved political parties are imposing a predetermined

outcome within a range of acceptable options, and Mosca writes,

when we say that the voters choose their representative, we are using a language that is very

inexact. The truth is that the representative has himself elected by the voters.

Even if Mosca is overstating the case here and a candidate is not fully able to impose his

election on the voters through partisan antics or through propaganda, it is nonetheless undeniable

that the parties can nearly always decide who the voters will not vote for. Those candidates

unacceptable to the elite will not be able to get past the partisan gatekeepers.

Yes, there will be some exceptions, such as Ron Paul or Thomas Massey, who do appear to be among

those who might be described as uncompromising. But a small number of these candidates

would no hope of forming a governing majority or attaining the highest offices can be tolerated.

What matters is that the fanatical political parties will not be permitted to circulate as governing

parties, and the acceptable parties will cooperate with the ruling elite by ensuring that the

governing parties remain safe, cooperative, and of no threat to the elite.

Moreover, if any of the governing parties were to threaten the established system of patronage,

they would cease to be regarded as acceptable parties and would join the fanatical parties

among the locked out coalitions. This helps illustrate why it is always a false hope

to think that either the Republican or Democratic party will ever threaten the current status quo

of the ruling elite. The fact that they alternate as part of the governing elite

is proof enough that they are no threat to the governing elites.

Considering all this, the idea that political power is actually transferred freely,

and peacefully between groups of counter-relates ought to be thoroughly dismissed.

The benefits of membership in the governing elite is too valuable to be risked in any truly

open elections. This would not be tolerable to either the elites themselves, or by the political

clients who see the perpetuation of the system as in their own economic self-interest.

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