ABSTRACT
When Mosca (1939), Michels (1962) and Pareto ([1935] 1997) formulated their arguments about elites, they were convinced that elites would always be with us: we could only hope that elites circulated from time to time so as to ensure that new groups got represented and new talent was put to use. When the “pink tide” governments of Latin America came to power, it was with quite different expectations. The aim for many of them was to engender profound societal transformations away from the elitist democracies that many had opposed in the past, and towards more egalitarian societies. As shown in the chapters above, in many cases the visions for change also included new ways of relating to nature and of how to reach more sustainable forms of production.
