Elitist Theory of democracy denies the possibility of democracy as the ‘rule of the people’. Elucidate.

The idea of democracy in political theory is considered to a contested one. One of such contestations is seen in the Elitist Theory of Democracy proposed by scholars like- Michels, Pareto, etc. in the twentieth century. They claimed that in every culture, a tiny group of elites govern over a particular political society.

 This small clique of elites has complete control over all power and influence.

Elitist theory is considered as the critique to the traditional republican theory of democracy postulated earlier by Mill, Macpherson, etc who defined rule of the people as representative form of democracy in true sense where the people was in ultimate control of their ruling class, as to be inherent unequal democratic rule, as suggested by scholars like Michels, Pareto, etc.

Elitist Theory critique to rule of people:

• At a broader level, the elitist theories hold that every society consists two categories of men:

The elite or the minority within a social collectivity which exercises an influence within that collectivity; and

The masses or the majority which is governed by the elite.

• Pareto finds that the masses viz, the majority people ruled by the chosen elites, are inferior

groups. The ruling class is dynamic and changes frequently where a new governing elite frequently replaces the existing elite. Thus, there is no sense that people can legitimately rule and rather elitist are the main rulers.

• Robert Michels in his work Political Parties concluded that the necessary division of people into ruled and the ruling groups shows that the ruling class enjoys all forms of power, wealth,

resources, prestige, etc. while the ruled remaining incompetent to replace it.

• Further, most of the representative democracies deteriorate towards Oligarchy or patriarchy –

which he termed as the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Every organization is eventually reduced to an

'oligarchy', that is the rule of the chosen few, based on their manipulative skills.

• C. Wright Mill’s Power Elite notion - According to him, the power elite is made up of people who

hold important positions in society. He calls them the 'power elite’ which has all the power and

the masses remain devoid of their basic powers to choose.

• Thus the elitist find democracy as a fight between elites and not between the people who actually doesn’t rule at all. Despite open to anyone, there is a power struggle, where power is always concentrated in the hands of a small handful of powerful people, defaulting the principle of political equality. 

However, in true sense, it is the people who actually rule and change governments in their own way. It can be seen in the rising social movements against authoritarian governments like that in USA, Middle East, etc. As a critique to this, Karl Mannheim said that people cannot directly participate in government, but they can make their aspirations felt at certain intervals, and this is sufficient for democracy.

Thus, people remain the real masters and democracy means “rule for the people, by the people and of the people” (Abraham Lincoln)