Although I write about it frequently, I continue to receive questions about how power, financial, and cultural elites maintain their position. The persistence of these questions suggests that my earlier explanations were either incomplete or insufficiently clear. Permit me, then, to return to the subject once more.
Let us begin with an extremely simplified picture: imagine a man who owns a bank, or a media house, or perhaps commands an army or controls an airport; he may dominate a foundation or a powerful non-profit. In reality, power is rarely so neatly divided. It usually consists of significant shares in several domains at once, often combining financial strength with influence in charities and media outlets.
The crucial point is that you gain access to resources that others cannot reach. Suppose the bank is yours. That alone is not enough. Ownership must be used to cultivate special skills: to manipulate people, to influence politicians, to select and supervise managers, to form alliances, and to keep your subordinates from growing beyond your control. You must excel at these arts—better than any of your servants, or at the very least equal to the most capable among them. This level of mastery is attainable because you can afford the best tutors, the most astute advisors, and the time required to practice these specialized skills. Should an extraordinary talent emerge from the lower ranks, you may allow him into your family by marriage—but only if he is truly exceptional.
Through these abilities you maintain control of your bank and, in all likelihood, expand it further. That success provides the means to invest in the development of your own skills and those of your children. And so the cycle may continue for generations.
Yet it always falters in the end. Abilities decline, or they cease to match the demands of new technologies and changing circumstances. Meanwhile, within society a different group arises, whose skills advance more rapidly. When those below become more capable than those above, the regime stands in peril. The rest of the story is familiar.
All the talk of oppression, popular anger, or social unrest is but the surface foam. These are symptoms, not causes. The essence of the cycle is the transfer of competence—from the entrenched elite that can no longer master its environment, to the new aspirants who can.