How the elite has changed

摘要

The notion of the establishment is a powerful one in Britain. The idea that a club made up of men educated at public school (British code for smart private secondary schools) and Oxford or Cambridge runs government and business has informed much of what has been written about British politics and society for the past half-century. It has fed, and fed off, some of the most depressing ways that Britain thinks about itself. The establishment is exclusive, impenetrable and permanent. It breeds and educates its own successors. It denies those excluded from it the opportunity of rising as far as their talents would naturally take them, and it deprives the country of the chance of choosing its leaders from the largest possible pool of talent. The establishment is mediocre, uncompetitive, technophobic, snobby, and responsible for much of what went wrong in Britain in the 20th century.