--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On May 22, 2008, at 3:06 PM, Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> > That is brings up an interesting sociological
> question: must the
> > ruling
> > class be a coherent social group to function
> effectively as the ruling
> > class in a capitalist society? Or is their social
> function as the
> > expropriators coherence enough?
>
> That's one of my questions. I'm not sure of the
> answer. But I'm
> thinking that the Iraq disaster and the subprime
> crisis are what
> happens when the pure pursuit of profit and
> short-term political
> advantage takes the upper hand.
[WS:] Would not that coherence be negatively correlated with their level of legitimacy. The less legitimate they are, the most coherent they must be to preempt challenges. And the more legitmate they are, the more free ride they enjoy, and thus they do not need to be coherent to maintain their position.
Following Hofstadter's argument, there seem to be a great deal of shared values among American elites and the populace, and shered values are the grounds for legitimacy. It seems, therefore, that the US elite enjoys a great deal of legitimacy, and therefore they do not need to be coherent at all. All they need is to have some means of accumulation, and legitimacy will follow. Iraq and subprime crisis are only minor distractions.
Wojtek