The definition of “elite” is not clearly defined.
1. The political approach assesses membership in the elite by the fact of possession of real power or influence on political processes (without regard to the intellectual and moral qualities of certain individuals).
2. The value approach is based on the original meaning of the concept of “elite”. It means that the elite includes individuals who have higher intelligence, talent, abilities, and competence compared to the average indicators of a particular society.
Ukrainian society has not developed criteria for a value-based approach to belonging to the elite.
At the very least, let’s understand the “elite” as a stable community of people with deep ties, who have common interests and access to the levers of real power
Let’s start with the definition of “elite”.
The word “elite” comes from the Latin verb “eligo” – “to choose,” meaning “the chosen ones.”
This term has been interpreted quite differently in different historical periods and in different societies.
In traditional society, the “elite” was defined as the upper castes with direct “divine descent”-that is, the natural superiority of some over others.
A class society already prioritizes individual merit. If belonging to a caste is an unchanging quality of being, then belonging to a class is a matter of chance, effort, and will.
In a class society, the principles of differentiation are reduced to the simplest formula of ownership of the means of production and other material wealth.
What we have in Ukraine today.
The modern Ukrainian “elite” is a pathological phenomenon in terms of its formation and functioning.
It is a product of the collapse of the USSR and the independence of the colonial administration in the Ukrainian SSR from the metropolis.
Its typical figures were party and economic nomenklatura, NKVDist, propaganda, and commissar cadres who were sent to Ukraine from Moscow to implement industrialization, collectivization, and other programs to build communism. It was under their occupation supervision that the personnel recruited from the locals were employed. That is, all the personnel who carried out pogroms, genocide, terror, and mass repression that bled the Ukrainian nation dry.
Once in power in the 1990s, this colonial administration did not change its nature. It used the need to form the apparatus of an independent state for its own reproduction. Democratic institutions, multi-party system, parliamentarism and separation of powers were used to plunder people’s property, provide prestigious and lucrative employment for their relatives and neutralize political movements.
That is why the genesis of all levels of this “elite” is defective: there is no ethics, no minimum cultural level, and morality has no imperative of honor at all. Accordingly, it is deprived of its own awareness as a carrier of the Ukrainian national idea. It can convey nothing but cynicism, rudeness, ignorance, and cruelty.
In order to stay in their positions, the vast majority of its representatives are ready to change everything – ideology, beliefs, religion, gender…
It will be possible to do something meaningful in Ukraine only when this muddy wave disappears into oblivion.
Regarding the socio-political analysis of elites. Their evolution and involution.
Here we will be interested in the works of Niccolo Machiavelli, Gaetano Mosca, and Robert Michels.
But we will start the discussion with Wilfredo Pareto. His “rotation of elites”.