A Research On Schumpeter’s Theory Of Elite Democracy

Joseph Schumpeter is a famous economist and political scientist of American,an outstanding representative of the elite democracy.The formation of the elite democracy theory is not only rooted in that specific background,which is the rise of socialism,the concept and requirements of popular democracy, but also has a profound theoretical origin,mainly including Pareto’s "theory of elite circulation", Mosca’s "ruling class",Michels’s" the iron law of oligarchy and Max Weber’s "bureaucratic democracy".Schumpeter believes that in fact there is no "rule of the people"or "majority rule", as the two cornerstones of the classical theory of democracy,"common welfare"and"the will of the people"neither exist, nor can exist,and made an influential criticism on them.Of course, the purpose of criticism is to reconstruction, Schumpeter precisely to build his theory of elite democratic on the basis of criticizing and destroying the two pillars of the classical theory of democracy, which is the theory of elite democracy.He defines democracy from the perspective of procedure,that democracy is the voters elected political leaders, at the same time, it is a procedure that politicians compete for votes and then get the political leadership, and the democracy embodies important feature is the program and competitive in the process.In order to guarantee this procedure democracy can run successfully,Schumpeter focuses its attention on the operation of democracy culture conditions,that is good enough political class,the limited scope of political decision,well-trained bureaucracy.the improvement of democratic self-control ability.Schumpeter believes that procedure democracy will inevitably lead to the ruling elite, and because the "primitive" theory of public political participation,the ruling elite or ruling politicians are inevitable,and it is concluded that the essence of the elite democracy is the ruling politicians.Schumpeter’s theory of elite democracy replaces the function of democracy by "voters decide political issues" to "electing the person who make the political decisions",the role of the people is to produce government,his democratic thought adapt to the objective demand of western democratic politics because of the change;He regards the democratic politics as a process that politicians need to obtain the political leadership by way of competition,and emphasizing the role of political elites in society,that political activities will inevitably become a profession,the political power should be given to those who master professional skills, high political quality and moral quality, the implementation of the governing elite.Although Schumpeter’s theory of elite democracy also has some theoretical defects,but its ideological position and theoretical value is still indelible,and it has important reference value and significance to the construction of democratic politics in our country.