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In the United States, sociologist C. Wright Mills had developed a similar idea as early as 1956 with his theory of the“ power elite”: a small circle of individuals moving between the military, economic, and political spheres, recommending one another, and co-opting one another without ever truly letting outsiders in. Closer to home, the French economist Thomas Piketty, in * Capital in the Twenty-First Century *, statistically demonstrated that the return on inherited capital structurally exceeds that of labor— a simple mathematical fact that, when applied to entire generations, slowly but surely transforms a merit-based society into a rentier society.
These theories are not conspiracy-theory ramblings. They have been documented, quantified, and studied for decades at the world’ s top universities. And they all converge on the same troubling conclusion: merit certainly exists, but it never flourishes in a vacuum. It needs fertile ground, a point of entry, and a favorable glance cast at the right moment by the right person..
In politics: a dynasty disguised as democracy
Take the United States, the self-proclaimed home of equal opportunity. Two Bushes have occupied the White House. Two Clintons came close to doing so on two separate occasions. Al Gore, the son of a senator, grew up in the halls of the Capitol before he could even walk. John F. Kennedy, the son of an ambassador and a tycoon, never had to worry about how to finance his first campaign. Even today, the Kennedys have held elected office almost without interruption since 1946— nearly eighty years of continuous presence in the American political establishment, a statistically improbable feat if merit alone were the sole driving force.
Flashmag! Edition 177 Octobre 2026
In France, the phenomenon is just as striking, though more discreet, more subdued, and less spectacular on the surface. The École nationale d’ administration— replaced in 2022 by the Institut national du service public— has long been the mandatory gateway to the highest offices of the state. Yet admission to this type of school remains statistically correlated with the candidates’ social background, more so than with their personal merit alone.
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