Tocqueville Essay

Is a new "aristocracy", based on talent and ambition, necessarily a bad thing?

I think that the new "aristocracy" based on talent and ambition that Tocqueville describes is definitely a step up from the more conventional aristocracy. In the old aristocracy, individuals were for the most part, immobile, and could not improve their fixed position in society. The good thing about this new aristocracy is that a person can create a better life for him or herself, based on their talent and ambition. This, I feel, is surely a more natural way of living. It's comparable to both Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection and Smith's Division of Labor, in that the people most suited to their particular environment or task will rise - in this particular case, to the top of the new aristocracy. The ideal outcome of this image would be a society where each and every individual is able to excell at his or her particular skill. But this Utopian view point does not consider the factor of competition.
Competition is what creates the different tiers of an industrial aristocracy. Out of this competition rise a few individuals who are very talented at what they do, and also very ambitious. I believe these individuals who use their talent to rise to the top deserve to be there. But what about the others whose talent is not great enough? The untalented and unambitious are now the ones in fixed positions in this new society. This argument is a very tough one, and I guess I'm still struggling with it. On one hand, I believe that people with talents and skills should be able to make their way in the world. But on the other hand, I have to acknowledge that the ordinary mass is unable to advance because of the exceptional few. But while competition creates differences within a society, it also fuels individuals' advancement by creating ambition. Without the wish to excell among each other, we would all remain immobile. So, just as a new aristocracy based on talent and ambition is a two sided argument, so is competition.
In her book, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand delves more deeply into this new contradictory aristocracy. She takes the side of the talented and few, by arguing that talent and ambition are absolutely essential in order for a society to function. She tells a story of how a group of very talented, ambitious, and powerful people are condemned by the rest of society for being too talented and too ambitious. They are expected to withhold their talents, and are unable to perform to the best of their ability, for fear of hurting the rest of society's opportunites. Eventually, the government completely restricts them and helps the ordinary citizens rise to power. But because of this, the talented ones aren't able to do their job, and the rest of society fails at attempting to do so. So by trying to provide everyone a fair chance in this aristocratic competition - by letting the less talented individuals get a head start - society malfunctions. Rand is convinced that the talented and ambitious few are the glue that holds society together.
Before I started reading Atlas Shrugged, I hadn't considered Rand's view point. And at first, I was bound and determined not to agree with her. I held fast to the conviction that everyone should have a fair chance in society - and still do. But I eventually had to admit that she has a point. It just doesn't make sense to allow people who don't know what they're doing to do the work at the expense of the few who actually can.
So the answer to this question can be either a yes or a no. It just depends on whose side you're on. Or if you're like me, stuck in the middle examining both sides of the argument, the answer can be both. Yes, I do believe that an aristocracy based on talent and ambition can be a bad thing, but I also believe that it can be a good thing.