Reform Requires Rising Elites Not Better Systems

August 30, 2023

The conventional view of reform, that broken institutions can be fixed by better processes, better incentives, or better transparency, misidentifies the problem. Institutions decay because the people who understood how to make them work are gone. Fixing institutions requires replacing the missing people, not adjusting the procedures.

"The solution is not to eliminate elites but to create socioeconomic niches for the kind of people who can independently judge the generative minds behind the facts." Samo Burja

Burja defines elites, following Weber and Pareto, as the group of people with preponderant influence on society. Their role is threefold:

They found and refound functional institutions, because no one else has the resources, talent, connections, and independence to do so.
They regulate status and prestige, determining what a society invests its collective energy in.
They provide the living knowledge that makes institutions work; without functioning elites, institutions become cargo cults running on dead procedures.

Rising elites, those not yet absorbed into existing power structures, are the agents of reform. Three paths lead into the elite class:

Demonstrating usefulness by providing rare resources or critical skills
Building personal networks through demonstrated loyalty and judgment
Making knowledge publicly useful in ways that attract attention The internet has expanded the third path considerably, allowing people outside traditional gatekeeping structures to demonstrate their value.

The implication is that civilizational reform is neither impossible nor guaranteed. Augustus Caesar saved the Roman Republic from terminal dysfunction, buying it centuries of additional functionality. But Augustus was a specific person with specific capabilities; had he not existed, the Republic would have collapsed sooner. Whether a declining civilization reverses its trajectory depends on whether it produces, identifies, and empowers the small number of people capable of founding or refounding functional institutions.

Civilization is not a machine that can be repaired with the right wrench. It is an ecosystem of institutions that depends on a thin stratum of people who understand how to build them.