Democracy and Elitism

From Michael Barone's column

In his 2005 book "Law, Pragmatism and Democracy," Posner nominates as the Virgil to guide us through our "Inferno" and "Purgatorio" the Austrian-born economist Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter -- hardly a sympathetic figure -- was an elitist who believed the achievements of capitalism were threatened by the greed and ignorance of the masses. But he supported popular electoral democracy -- a controversial stand in the Mitteleuropa of the 1920s -- if only to give the masses a sense that they were in control. "Democracy," as Posner describes Schumpeter's view, "is conceived of as a method by which members of a self-interested political elite compete for the votes of a basically ignorant and apathetic, as well as determinedly self-interested, electorate."

Belief in democracy and elitism are compatible after all. And this sounds a lot like my tongue-in-cheek defense of democracy below.