So, I’m late in joining this discussion… From a simple (perhaps simplistic) view, my sense is that the nature of the elite shifted in the Progressive Era, and what we got was a transition from Gilded Age elites to the responsible elites of the mid-20th C. What we’ve seen in the last few decades is, as you say, a turnover of power from that old vanguard to a new, shifting elite, with none of the same sense of responsibility. But, if we cover, say, 1880 to 1980, we don’t see a uniform decline in elite responsibility, but rather a bowed curve: gilded elites give way to the progressive era and depression/WWII era elites (who, I agree, were a good lot on the whole!) and then, via deregulation, turnover in the composition of the elite, financialization of the economy, etc., – in short, the current mess. Interestingly, the shifting nature of the elite corresponds to a much stronger grip of elites over general society than earlier – hence, we return to Gilded Age era levels of economic inequality, in contrast to much of the 20th C.

I can think of two general factors at least that might account for these changes. The first is geopolitical: 20th C. elites were hemmed in at home by a strong labor movement and abroad by Cold War geopolitics, and needed to show that the American system produced a better outcome, even for the little guy, than either outright Communism, or all the socialist variants then being tried in Europe, and proposed here. So there was a serious prudential need for constraint, and somehow the elites largely pulled off coordinating that restraint. There’s no such need now. As vulgar and short-sighted as American elites are today, they are examples of virtue and modesty in comparison to the nouveaux riches of the Middle East, Russia, China, and India, alas.

But a second, perhaps even more important shift is generational. If the Gilded Age fortunes represented a disproportionate number of nouveaux riches – eager for more, eager for display, and insecure in their status – then perhaps their children and grandchildren grew up embarrassed by vulgar display, secure in status, and motivated by a broader sense of purpose (since Dad had already made the fortune, but was also a difficult bastard). If this is the case, perhaps we can hope that the children of today’s reckless financiers will want to become decent professionals, mayors, doctors, academics, etc. and imbue those professions with internal codes of conduct that emphasize personal virtue, public good, and non-market discipline.

A final point about the ethnic composition of the elite: the Gilded Age folks were just as WASP as their 20th C. successors; so WASP virtue isn’t necessarily – or just – WASP per se. After all, the mid-20th C. elite had large numbers of German Jews, who worked alongside (and often intermarried) with WASPs, and had the same sense of restraint and public purpose. Of course, in many cases, WASPs and non-WASPs alike were educated at the same boarding schools and elite universities that emphasized a certain esprit de corps and made general abstention a virtue. At elite schools today, of course, the virtue of abstention – of modesty, of holding back, of civility – is largely missing, and students are taught to promote themselves ruthlessly in order to get ahead. Which has, as you say, produced a very different America…

@Whipper Snapper–You may be right about the ratio of gems to crap. But would you argue that the general level is higher today?

@Greg–This may not be the kind of premise that can be “established”. As our own Peter Lawler might say, things used to be both better and worse. Better, perhaps, in the spirit of public service or noblesse oblige. Worse in the injustice involved in any stable ruling class.

We have more crap but we have more gems today.

So yes, we are better informed and better entertained that ever before. There greater access to information and media and greater ability to produce it.

Carl:I didn’t bring up the neocon connection. But if it makes you happier to say interventionists (a category that includes many Democrats and liberals), fine. We can talk about Washington another day. Of course his foreign policy views were complicated–but really not that complicated, I think.

Oh, and it’s not very important here, but Samuel seems to have a simplistic view of what “neocons” are and what Washington’s foreign policy approach was. Which isn’t to say that a teaparty adoption of a foreign-policy approach defined by an opposite-of-Obama aggressiveness wouldn’t be a very much more simplistic and dangerous thing. Then again, my impression is that the teapartiers aren’t staking claim to a definite foreign policy stance, so as to allow their members to unite on domestic concerns.