MOSCA, GAETANO

born April 1, 1858, Palermo, Sicily, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies [now in Italy] died Nov. 8, 1941, Rome, Italy Italian jurist and political theorist who, by applying a historical method to political ideas and institutions, elaborated the concept of a ruling minority (classe politica) present in all societies. His theory seemed to have its greatest influence on apologists for fascism who misunderstood his works. Educated at the University of Palermo, Mosca taught constitutional law there (188588) and at the Universities of Rome (188896) and Turin (18961908). A member of the Italian chamber of deputies from 1908, he served as under secretary of state for the colonies from 1914 to 1916 and was made a senator for life by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1919. His last speech in the Senate was an attack on Benito Mussolini. Mosca's Teorica (Sulla teorica dei governi e sul governo parlamentare, 1884; Theory of Governments and Parliamentary Government) was followed by Elementi di scienza politica (1896; The Ruling Class). In these and other writings, but especially in the Elementi, he asserted, contrary to theories of majority rule, that societies are necessarily governed by minorities: by military, priestly, or hereditary oligarchies or by aristocracies of wealth or of merit. He showed an impartial indifference to the most diverse political philosophies. For him the will of God, the will of the people, the sovereign will of the state, and the dictatorship of the proletariat were all mythical. Though sometimes called Machiavellian, Mosca actually considered most of Niccol Machiavelli's political ideas impractical. He opposed the racist elitism preached in Nazi Germany; condemned Marxism, which in his view expressed the hatred within Karl Marx; and mistrusted democracy, seeing the greatest threat to liberal institutions in the extension of the suffrage to the most uncultured strata of the population. To him the most enduring social organization was a mixed government (partly autocratic, partly liberal) in which the aristocratic tendency is tempered by a gradual but continuous renewal of the ruling class by the addition of men of lower socioeconomic origin who have the will and the ability to rule.