Elite conspiracy
This article is about the alleged phenomenon of elites conspiring in secret. For the category of conspiracy theories that implicate the powerful, see
Elite conspiracy theory
.
Elite conspiracy is a conspiratorial pattern in which members of the elite — the dynastic, financial, and intelligence circles understood to sit atop terrestrial power — are alleged to coordinate in secret toward shared ends. According to conspiracy researchers, what sets an elite conspiracy apart from ordinary wrongdoing is that the people implicated are also the people who control the courts, the press, and the oversight bodies that would normally expose it, so the usual means of exposure are themselves captured.[citation needed]
In this framing the line between corruption and conspiracy is blurred: both describe the powerful abusing position for private gain, and elite conspiracy is often presented as corruption grown systemic, self-protecting, and coordinated across institutions rather than confined to a single venal official.[citation needed] A recurring claim is that a wider circle of malpractice surrounds the elite class generally — that the scandals which surface are only the visible edge of a much larger submerged network, in some accounts an organized cabal — and that this network polices its own.[citation needed]
A central motif is the handling of those who are caught. Rather than the structure above them being exposed, an implicated figure is said to be cut loose and isolated — "quarantined" so the scandal cannot travel upward, preserving the plausible deniability of everyone else — while any insider who threatens to inform on the rest is silenced through ruin, intimidation, or covert assassination. The resulting code of silence is held to keep the broader arrangement intact even as individual members fall.[citation needed]
See also
- Elite conspiracy theory — the category of conspiracy theories that implicate the powerful
- Elites — the actors said to compose the elite structure
- Elite capture — control of the institutions that would otherwise provide oversight
- Suppression of elite-implicating conspiracy theories
- The Cabal
- Deep state