The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Liberty.

DECLINIST books are very much in style these days, each more alarming or depressing than the previous one. Not that I mind all that much, having long agreed with George Will's dictum that the only question remaining about the decline of Western civilization is the pace. Indeed, at the American Enterprise Institute, where I toil, we held a panel discussion not long ago on the subject: "Was Western Civilization a Good Idea?" The answer was indefinite.

Now comes Christopher Lasch's latest and, sadly, last book. It is a sometimes quirky but always provocative work, more like a collection of essays than a systematic exposition of a thesis. Still, the essays for the most part do cluster around the theme the title announces.

At first, I did not think I was going to like the book because Lasch offers opinions that strike this reader at least as excessively liberal, which is perhaps not difficult to do. The Revolt of the Elites is intended to play off Ortega y Gasset's classic The Revolt of the Masses: "Once it was 'the revolt of the masses' that was held to threaten social order and the civilizing traditions of Western culture. In our time, however, the chief threat seems to come from those at the top of the social hierarchy, not the masses." The intended contrast is flawed because Lasch and Ortega do not define either the elites or the masses in the same way. For Lasch, the distinction between the elites and the masses is primarily socio-economic status; for Ortega, elites are "those who make great demands on themselves, piling up difficulties and duties," while the "mass" is composed of "those who demand nothing special of themselves." Thus, the pseudo-intellectual is mass man while those working men with "nobly disciplined minds" are not. The distinction is important, for Lasch's definition of the elites causes him, initially at least, to miss what is defining about them.

There is certainly a sense in which our time is characterized by what might be called a revolt of the elites, elites defined not as either Ortega or Lasch defined them but as persons who shape our culture and who display common attitudes that are quite different from the attitudes of most of the rest of the population. Lasch's elites are persons with wealth and mobility, those who succeed in a society that is increasingly meritocratic. He defines democracy as meaning social as well as political equality, so that "meritocracy is a parody of democracy." He regrets the social stratification that meritocracy produces.

Lasch, however, objects not just to widening social divisions but also to inequality, which is a different matter: "economic inequality is intrinsically undesirable," "luxury is morally repugnant," and "a moral condemnation of great wealth must inform any defense of the free market, and that moral condemnation must be backed up with effective political action." It is difficult to see much basis for this, other than the envy that so often motivates the Left in its quest for redistribution. The economy is not a zero-sum game, and the wealth of a Bill Gates or a Michael Jordan does not take anything away from me. Indeed, the wealth of others enhances my life. Without the generosity of the rich, directly or through the foundations they have established, many of us who prefer life on a university faculty or at a think tank would have had quite different and less satisfying careers.

In any event, Lasch does not examine the difficulties his version of democracy faces. Rapidly evolving technology, in the direction of greater complexity, has made those who work with abstract concepts and symbols more valuable, and hence better paid. If we take "effective political action" to prevent the accumulation of wealth, we will also ensure that the society as a whole is poorer than it need be. There may be those who would find that a cost worth paying in order to avoid the pain of realizing that there exist persons much richer than themselves, but it seems unlikely that most Americans, if they understand the tradeoff, would agree.

By defining the elites primarily as money-makers, moreover, Lasch avoids the real problem our elites pose: their cultural and political values. "Efforts to define a 'new class' composed of public administrators and policy makers, relentlessly pushing a program of liberal reforms, ignore the range of political opinions among the professional and managerial elites." But this misses the point. The "new class" does not include, as Lasch contends it does, "brokers, bankers, realestate promoters and developers, engineers, consultants of all kinds, systems analysts, scientists, doctors," but rather is made up of those in the second half of his list: "publicists, publishers, editors, advertising executives, art directors, moviemakers, entertainers, journalists, television producers and directors, artists, writers, university professors." Only by lumping the two groups together can he claim that there is no common political outlook. What is distinctive about the latter group is that they influence cultural and political attitudes, as the former group does not. One Oliver Stone motion picture has far more impact on the way Americans see their country than all the pronouncements of the chairmen of the boards of General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Microsoft, and IBM combined. The group to which Mr. Stone belongs is overwhelmingly of leftist disposition. That is the "new class."

When Lasch stops riding the theme of the evils of meritocracy and wealth and the threat they pose to democracy, his book becomes much more interesting. He eventually forgets about bankers and brokers, and begins implicitly to define elites as comprising his second category, those engaged in ideas and entertainment. He recognizes that it is these elites, not real-estate developers, who are in revolt against America.

For example, the chapter "Does Democracy Deserve to Survive?" might have been written for NATIONAL REVIEW. There Lasch attacks the view that democracy is incompatible with excellence and that high standards are elitist (read "racist"). "The latest variation on this familiar theme, its reductio ad absurdum," he writes, "is that respect for cultural diversity forbids us to impose the standards of privileged groups on the victims of oppression." The insistence upon standards these days is called Eurocentrism, and various groups are told they need not try to meet the standards because they are rigged in favor of white males. Well, the standards are associated with whites because they were developed in Europe, and, whether we are talking about science, technology, law, education, philosophy, or what have you, Europe produced the most successful standards in the world. To tell groups that they need not strive to meet them is to ensure their future lack of success, which will foster a further hostility to the standards.

Lasch parts with the liberal notion that civic virtue is unnecessary to democracy, which is widely thought to require only a legal system, a set of institutions, and rules for elections. Anyone who contemplates the present degraded state of our politics, government, and culture must sympathize with his desire for a "revisionist version of American history, one that stresses the degree to which liberal democracy has lived off the borrowed moral capital of moral and religious traditions antedating the rise of liberalism." Moral capital, like tangible forms of capital, is subject to depreciation. It does not last forever unless it is replenished, and ours is not being replenished. True, there are revivals of traditional faith in both Christianity and Judaism, but they have yet to have a significant impact on the broader culture. Perhaps they never will, because few of their adherents staff the prestigious universities, national media, Hollywood, or the other institutions that control the symbols of our culture.

The source of the moral breakdown that afflicts America is the subject of controversy. Lasch points to capitalism's identification with self-gratification as a leading culprit, but the relationship was not inevitable. Capitalism existed for a long time in societies that, by current standards, were highly moral. In looking for the causes of moral breakdown, a number of candidates other than capitalism come to mind: the steady spread of the democratic ideal, which encourages the notion that hierarchies, including moral hierarchies, are illegitimate; the advance of technology, which progressively relieves us of arduous work and offers multiple forms of pernicious entertainment; and, as Lasch himself notes, the secularization of American life.

Lasch's sympathies are firmly with religion rather than secularism. He asks "what accounts for [our society's] wholesale defection from the standards of personal conduct--civility, industry, self-restraint--that were once considered indispensable to democracy," and answers that a major reason is the "gradual decay of religion." Our liberal elites, whose "attitude to religion ranges from indifference to active hostility," have succeeded in removing religion from public recognition and public debate. Though Lasch does not say so, that is one of the many effects flowing from the liberal elites' capture of the Supreme Court, which, here as elsewhere, imposes elite values at the expense of both the historical meaning of the Constitution and self-government.

The Revolt of the Elites ranges provocatively, insightfully, and, in my view, sometimes wrong-headedly over too many topics to make a full review in a short space possible. One finishes it with sadness because there will be no more. In his Acknowledgments, Lasch remarks that he is more than usually indebted to others because "this book was written under trying circumstances." That is the only reference to his personal tragedy. We learn elsewhere that he died just ten days after completing the book.