The Establishment

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For other uses, see Establishment.

"The Establishment" is a pejorative slang term to refer to the traditional ruling class elite and the structures of society which they control.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the "establishment" was seen as representing restrictive, authoritarian policies. It was associated with age, as the old fashioned way of doing things, and was said to be dominated by members of the war generation who had not yet adapted to or accepted the big societial changes of the decade. In the 1980s, conservative critics (particularly in America and Britain) began to assert that liberals had become the new "establishment".

The term can be used to describe specific entrenched elite structures in specific institutions. For example, candidates for political office are often said to have to impress the "party establishment" in order to win endorsement.

Sociologically, one who does not belong to the "establishment" is an "outsider" - see Norbert Elias, The Established and the Outsiders (1965), and Scientific Establishments and Hierarchies (ed. with others) (1982).

The Establishment

See also