me: > I don't think that members of the Chinese elite care about "national > prestige" except to the extent that it increases their power and > strengthens their hold on it.
Shane Mage <[email protected]> wrote: > Are you saying that the "Chinese elite" is exactly the same as every other > ruling "elite" in the history of the world? yup. By the way, I follow C. Wright Mills to distinguish political elites from ruling classes: the ruling class refers to the dominant positions in the social structure of domination in the mode of production (e.g., the capitalists in capitalism), while the political (or "power") elite refers to those who explicitly make decisions at the top of the state apparatus. Most of the time under capitalism, the political elite acts for the ruling class, but it doesn't always do a good job at it -- while there are often competing interpretations within the ruling class about what's in their long-term collective self-interest (once we get beyond the preservation of their property rights). The state and its elite has some "relative autonomy" from the ruling class. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
