ABSTRACT
Other authors prefer to write the word exclusively in the singular and to speak of a ‘ruling élite’, like Bottomore, or ‘power élite’, like C.Wright Mills. To further complicate matters, certain of them employ the word ‘class’ where others, with an identical meaning, prefer the word ‘élite’. ‘Ruling élite’ and ‘ruling class’, ‘governing élite’ and ‘governing class’ are nevertheless expressions which are often interchangeable. As for the idea of ‘dominant class’, it suggests the existence, over and above the ‘apparent’ diversity of élites, of a convergence of their interests, of a complicity of their members, of a collaboration between the power of one and the influence of the other.
