What would you identify as the similarities and differences in the elite theories of Mosca, Michels and Pareto? Discuss their main/crucial issues. (Answer in 350 words)

- What would you identify as the similarities and differences in the elite theories of Mosca, Michels and Pareto? Discuss their main/crucial issues. (Answer in 350 words)
Introduction
Mosca, Michels and Pareto agree that the many never rule, and disagree about everything that follows.

Body

1. What the three hold in common: All three deny that rule by the many is possible: every society divides into a governing minority and a governed majority, whatever its constitution says. All three wrote against Marx, holding that abolishing private property would install a new elite rather than none, so rule rests on organisation or personal quality rather than on ownership. All three treat democracy as competition between elites rather than popular rule, and all three present this as a law of political life discovered by observation, not as a preference.

2. Where they differ: On the source of elite power. Mosca's Ruling Class makes it organisation — a cohesive minority defeats a disorganised majority and justifies itself by a political formula, which changes with the age: divine right yesterday, the will of the people today. Pareto makes it psychology: residues are unevenly distributed, producing lions who rule by force and foxes by manipulation, and the circulation of elites is the alternation between the two types. Michels, in Political Parties, makes it the technical requirement of large organisation — leadership needs expertise, continuity and a salaried apparatus, so even a socialist party pledged to democracy turns oligarchic, which is the iron law. On change they differ again: Pareto has a cycle, Mosca a slower renewal through sub-elites and rising social forces, Michels no circulation at all. Mosca alone allows that juridical defence and open recruitment can restrain the elite.

3. The crucial issues they raise: Whether elite rule is a law or a historically specific finding; whether the elite is one cohesive group or many competing ones, which is Mills's Power Elite against Dahl's polyarchy; whether the theory can be falsified at all, since every outcome confirms it; and its political use, Michels's law having served resignation and fascism alike. India tests them: dominant-caste control of panchayats, which Srinivas described, fits Mosca's organisation thesis better than Pareto's residues.

4. What the comparison establishes: One shared negative claim — that popular rule is a formula rather than a fact — resting on three incompatible explanations of why.

Conclusion
Their disagreement matters more than their agreement, since how a minority rules decides whether it can be replaced.