SOURCE: "Elites versus the State," in Elites: Ethno-graphic Issues, edited by George E. Marcus, University of New Mexico Press, 1983, pp. 257-76.

In the following essay, Hansen and Parrish examine the anthropological organization of elites in modern capitalist societies using the theories of Mosca and Pareto.

This essay is concerned with retooling an old concept—that of elite—with a view toward making an anthropological contribution to the eternal debate over who rules in capitalist societies. To this end, we hope to revive and recast those of Pareto's and Mosca's original ideas about the nature of elites and society that we feel have been stripped of their epistemological value by generations of scholars subsequent to Pareto and Mosca. As anthropologists, we are particularly interested in their suggestions that elites are organized by kin and connections, in opposition to formal institutions of power, such as states, corporations, or political parties...