Born to rule: the making and remaking of the British elite
Aaron Reeves and Sam Friedman, Harvard UP, £20

THIS study of Britain’s ruling class is based on an analysis of the 125,000 entrants in Who’s Who since 1897. The two authors, professors of sociology at Oxford and the LSE,  ask, “Who really rules Britain today? Unsurprisingly, the answer is a very small number – about 6,000 individuals... 0.01 percent of the UK population.” This is the real ruling class.

Within the wider British elite of some 33,000 people sits a wealth elite of around 6,000 people. The wealth elite are in Who’s Who, and they are also in the top 1 per cent of the national wealth distribution. They are 20 times more likely to reach the ruling class than other people. 

The authors examine how the propulsive power of family wealth, elite private schools, and Oxbridge ensures that those born into the top 1 per cent are still just as likely to get into that tiny group today as they were 125 years ago: “The main picture our results paint, spanning 125 years of elite recruitment, is one of powerful continuity.” 

People who figured in Who’s Who in 1900 were 120 times more likely to see their descendants reach these elite positions than everyone else in the population, “a staggeringly high proportion.” This durable link between wealth and elite reproduction undermines claims that Britain’s elite is – even slowly – becoming representative of the population it claims to represent.

The nine Clarendon Schools have educated 53 per cent of all the holders of the four top government posts – prime minister, home secretary, foreign secretary and chancellor of the exchequer. 23 per cent of them attended Eton. Alumni of these nine schools are 52 times more likely to reach the British elite - and the company of their 33,000 chums in Who’s Who - than those who attended any other school. They represent less than one in every 500 pupils, but produce nearly one in 10 of all Who’s Who entrants.

The authors point out that successive governments have allowed the very wealthy to avoid paying tax. “The amount of wealth hidden from probate records increased dramatically after 1950, largely because of a substantial rise in inheritance taxes which prompted wealthy families to put more of their assets into vehicles untouched by the tax office. For the very wealthy, such as those in the top 1 percent, around 60 per cent of their wealth suddenly disappeared from official records, whereas around 30 per cent of wealth was hidden for those in the top 10 percent.” 

Where did all this wealth disappear to? To the chain of tax havens around the world, mostly ex-colonies, now members of the Commonwealth – where the wealth is anything but common.

Members of the wealth elite occupy “the strategic command posts” of society, working together to promote a favourable political environment. The authors claim that “studying elites allows sociologists to return to a vision of class that explicitly considers the domination of the working class by an elite... After all, in recent years it is elites who suppressed wages, who undermined trade unions, and who implemented cuts to social security.”

The authors cite Marx’s concept of the “ruling class,” in which a capitalist class (the owners and controllers of capital) controls the state and their analysis proves the truth of Marx’s concept when applied to Britain’s past and present. But as academics they feel obliged not to use the loaded term “ruling class.” Discretion is advisable in our universities.

As in so many other fine diagnoses of Britain’s problems, the authors follow up with totally inadequate proposals for change. They advocate reforming council tax, a wealth tax, and a steeper capital gains tax, but they have already shown how the very rich avoid paying the inheritance tax.

They have shown that there is a distinct ruling class, of perhaps 0.1 per cent of the population, very different in power, wealth and life chances from the rest of us. So, the 99.9 per cent of us have a common interest in not allowing this tiny unrepresentative group to carry on misruling us. We have a common interest not in merely reducing their power but in seizing power from them.