Gaetano Mosca | |
|---|---|
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| Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies forPalermo | |
| In office 24 March 1909 – 29 September 1919 | |
| Constituency | Caccamo |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1858-04-01)1 April 1858 |
| Died | 8 November 1941(1941-11-08) (aged 83) |
| Political party | Historical Right |
| Alma mater | University of Palermo |
| Profession | Teacher,journalist |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Italian school of elitism |
| Main interests | Politics,economics,sociology |
| Notable ideas | Political class, political formula (a set of doctrines propagated by the ruling elites),[1]elite theory |
Gaetano MoscaCOSMLCOCISoK (Italian:[ɡaeˈtaːnoˈmoska]; 1 April 1858 – 8 November 1941) was anItalianpolitical scientist,journalist andpublic servant. He is credited with developing theelite theory and the doctrine of thepolitical class and is one of the three members constituting theItalian school of elitism together withVilfredo Pareto andRobert Michels.[2][3]
Mosca earned a degree in law from theUniversity of Palermo in 1881. In 1887 he moved toRome and took a position as editor of proceedings of theChamber of Deputies of Italy. Having taught occasionally atPalermo andRome, Mosca became chair of constitutional law at theUniversity of Turin in 1896. He would hold this position until 1924, when he settled permanently inRome to occupy the chair of public law at theUniversity of Rome. Mosca held several other academic positions throughout his life.
He wasskeptical towards democracy, and placed his lifelongliberalism in direct opposition to mass democracy. In a 1904 interview, he stated:
I can certainly call myself an anti-democrat, but I am not an anti-liberal; indeed I am opposed to pure democracy precisely because I am a liberal. I believe that the ruling class ought not to be monolithic andhomogeneous but ought to consist of elements which arediverse in regard to origin and interests; when, instead, political power originates from a single source, even if this be elections withuniversal suffrage, I regard it as dangerous and liable to become oppressive. Democratic Jacobinism is an illiberal doctrine precisely because it subordinates everything to a single force, that of the so-called majority, on which it does not set any limits.[4]
In 1909 Mosca was elected to theChamber of Deputies of Italy, in which he served until 1919. During this time, he served as Under-secretary for the Colonies from 1914 until 1916. During this time, Mosca also worked as a political journalist for theCorriere della Sera ofMilan (after 1901) and theTribuna ofRome (from 1911 to 1921).[5]
In 1919, Mosca was nominatedlife senator of theKingdom of Italy. He served actively in this capacity until 1926. In 1925 he signed theManifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals. On numerous occasions, the elderly Mosca took to the floor to speak against bills endorsed byBenito Mussolini which intended to curtail political rights and parliamentary institutions.[6] Mosca explained his opposition to these bills not only by referring to his own faith in political liberties as values worth preserving, but also by appealing to the "development and progress" that accompanied those nations where political liberties had been safeguarded through representative institutions.[6] Parliamentary regimes were able to protect civil and political liberties because they provided an independent source of authority through which to limit the power of the rulers.[6] Mosca's speeches in support of civil liberties and parliamentary government, as well as his steadfast refusal to compromise with the fascist regime, exerted an important influence on members of the intellectual opposition to Mussolini's dictatorship such asGaetano Salvemini andPiero Gobetti.[6]
Mosca is most famous for his works of political theory. These wereSulla teorica dei governi e sul governo parlamentare (Theory of Governments and Parliamentary Government), published in 1884;Elementi di scienza politica (The Ruling Class), published in 1896; andStoria delle dottrine politiche (History of Political Doctrines), published in 1936.
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Mosca's enduring contribution topolitical science is the observation that all but the most primitive societies are ruled in fact, if not in theory, by a numerical minority. He named this minority thepolitical class. That means that every society could be split between two social classes: the one who rules and the one which is ruled. This is always true, for Mosca, because without a political class there is no rule.
Although his theory is correctly characterized aselitist, its basis is different fromThe Power Elite described, for example, byC. Wright Mills. Unlike Mills and later sociologists, Mosca aimed at developing a universal theory ofpolitical society. His more general theory of thePolitical Class reflects this aim.[7]
Mosca defined modern elites in term of their superior organisational skills. These skills are especially useful in gaining political power in modernbureaucratic society. Nevertheless, Mosca's theory was more liberal than the elitist theory ofPareto, for example. In Mosca's view, elites are not always hereditary, as peoples from all classes of society can theoretically become elite. When this happens, the reproduction of power is defined as democratic; in contrast, when the members' turnover remains inside the elite, the reproduction of power is defined as aristocratic. He also adhered to the concept of the circulation of elites, a dialectical theory of constant competition among elites, with different elite groups alternating with each other repeatedly over time. This concept originated from his materialist idea of history as a conflict between classes (Marx), from the conflictual nature of politics considered as a fight for acquisition and deployment of power (Machiavelli), and finally from the non-egalitarian, hierarchical structure of society. Unlike Marx, Mosca has not a narrow concept of historical time, but a circular one, as in classical political theory, which consists in a perpetual condition of conflict and recycling of the elite. For Mosca, the dichotomous structure of society would not be solved by a revolution.[8]
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