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Born to Rule: the making and remaking of the British elite


A uniquely data-rich analysis of the British elite from the Victorian era to today: who gets in, how they get there, what they like and look like, where they go to school, and what politics they perpetuate.

Think of the British elite and familiar caricatures spring to mind. But are today’s power brokers a conservative chumocracy, born to privilege and anointed at Eton and Oxford? Or is a new progressive elite emerging with different values and political instincts? In this project, culminating in our recent book, , we comb through a trove of data in search of an answer, looking at the profiles, interests, and careers of over 125,000 members of the British elite from the late 1890s to today.   

At the heart of the study is the historical database of Who’s Who, but we also mined genealogical records, combed through probate data, and interviewed over 200 leading figures from a wide range of backgrounds and professions to uncover who runs Britain, how they think, and what they want. What we found is that there is less movement at the top than we think. Yes, there has been some progress on including women and Black and Asian Brits, but those born into the top 1% are almost just as likely to get into the elite today as they were 125 years ago.   

What has changed is how elites present themselves. Today’s elite pedal hard to convince us they are perfectly ordinary – in the way they tell their back story, express their cultural taste, or articulate their meritocratic legitimacy. And this is logical; we show that there is a strong symbolic market for ordinariness among the British public.   

Why should we care? Because the elites we have affect the politics we get. We show that the family you are born into, and the schools you attend, leave a profound mark on the exercise of power.  

Highlights: 

  • Winner of the 2024 Mary Douglas Book Prize from the American Sociological Association (Sociology of Culture) 
  • The Economist, Best Books of 2024 
  • The Times, Best Books of 2024 

Team

Professor Aaron Reeves, Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics 

Professor Sam Friedman, Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics 

Publications 

Belknap: Harvard University Press.  

Bortun, V., Reeves, A., & Friedman, S. (2024). Political Studies. 

Higgins, K., Friedman, S., & Reeves, A. (2024). Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1–21. 

Friedman, S., Ellersgaard, C., Reeves, A., Larsen, A. (2023) . Social Forces.  

Worth, E. Reeves, A., Friedman, S. (2022) British Journal of Sociology of Education.  

Friedman, S. and Reeves, A. (2020) American Sociological Review. 

Reeves, A., Friedman, S., Rahal, C., Flemmen, (2017) ', American Sociological Review 82 (6) 1139-1167 

Events


Hosted by the Department of Sociology

Speakers: Professor Sam Friedman, Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, 91桃色; , Barrister, Landmark Chambers; Professor Aaron Reeves, Professor of Sociology, 91桃色 Department of Sociology;  Peter G. Peterson Chair of Corporate Ethics, Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management; Dr Faiza Shaheen, Economist, Writer and Commentator

Chair: Professor Suzanne Hall, Professor of Sociology and Head of Department, 91桃色 Department of Sociology

At the launch of Born to Rule, Aaron Reeves and Sam Friedman provide a uniquely data-rich analysis of the British elite from the Victorian era to today: who gets in, how they get there, what they like and look like, where they go to school, and what politics they perpetuate.

 

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