[Peace-discuss] What is the liberal elite?

[C. G. Estabrook]

Q: What is the "liberal elite" that you have referred to and what defines their 
morals and ideas?



A: The terms of political discourse are vague and obscure, including these, but 
also virtually all others: 'capitalism,' 'market', 'socialism', 'conservative', 
etc. I was using the term in the conventional manner, with 'liberal' understood 
in the American sense, something like 'mildly social democratic', roughly 'New 
Labour' in the British context.

The term elite refers to those with more privilege and opportunity, hence who 
dominate decision-making in the economic, political, and ideological spheres. 
There are no sharp boundaries, no club to belong to. To discover their morals 
and ideas we investigate what they say but more significantly what they do.

Also polls, which reveal that corporate executives tend to share the views of 
'liberal elites' on social and cultural issues, though they tend more towards 
what's called 'conservative' (a much abused term) on economic issues. Impossible 
to spell it out here, but I've written reams about the matter, as of course have 
many others.



[A question posed to Noam chomsky on the BBC, 18 November 2009:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/8357526.stm>.  --CGE]