ABSTRACT
The instruments of struggle are the "reforms" that the theorists of elitist democracy celebrate as means of making the masses happy, contented, and apathetic, and of isolating the critical intellectuals. From the mass perspective these same reforms appear as coercive, destructive, divisive, or at best as frauds, in short as violence against people. The critical intellectuals—self-critical intellectuals—see themselves as elite anti-elitists; they have opposed interests as common interests with the masses. The elitists empathize with the mass victims of our elite-run democracy and are interested in what it is doing for the masses. Recent self-studies of critical intellectuals include Horowitz, Gouldner, B. and J. Ehrenreich. The picture is similar to that provided by the Schumpeterian intellectuals. Intellectuals are relatively detached from the conventions of their society and even from their class. They deal with words, language, ideas, and believe in the power of ideas; their characteristic virtue is creativity.
