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ent time. For those classes, “which include not only corporate mana -
gers but all those professions that produce and manipulate infor-
mation”,6 the idea of success is strictly associated with mobility.
This is a relatively new concept that has previously always figured
only marginally in the definition of career advancement or career
opportunity. The new privileged classes become more and more
cosmopolitan or in fact ‘migratory’ and have not only definitively
lost their contact with ordinary people, but also their attachment
to the idea of nationality or community.
The privileged classes in Los Angeles feel more kinship with their
counterparts in Japan, Singapore, and Korea than with most of
their own countrymen. The same tendencies are at work all over
the world. In Europe referenda on unification have revealed a deep
and widening gap between the political classes and the more hum-
ble members of society, who fear that the European Economic
Community will be dominated by bureaucrats and technicians
devoid of any feelings of national identity or allegiance. A Europe
governed from Brussels, in their view, will be less and less amen -
able to popular control. The international language of money will
speak more loudly than local dialects.7
The new elites do not specifically provide for the government of
the community, on the contrary, the artificial character of politics
reflects their isolation from the common man. Unlike the ‘old’
capitalistic elite, the new privileged class is not interested in
wealth or culture redistribution, which is one of the fundamental
characteristics of a democratic society. In fact, the wane and
exploitation of democracy are the main subjects of Lasch’s book.
According to Lasch, they drive the community to breaking-point.
Firstly, the community is the simple spectator of fierce debates
and ideological battles fought on peripheral issues. Secondly, the
society itself reflects a secret conviction that the real problems are
insoluble.8
STEFANO ROSATTI
255
6 Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, New York & London:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1995, p. 5.
7 Ibid, p. 46.
8 Ibid, pp. 3–4.
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