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The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power
In this major new work, Pierre Bourdieu examines the distinctive forms of power―political, intellectual, bureaucratic, and economic―by means of which contemporary societies are governed. What kinds of competence are claimed by the bureaucrats and technocrats who govern us? And how do those who govern gain our recognition and acquiescence? Bourdieu examines in detail the work of consecration that is carried out by elite education systems―in France by the grande écoles , in the United States by the Ivy League schools, and in England by Oxford and Cambridge. Today, this "state nobility" has at its disposal an unprecedented range of powers and distinctive titles to justify its privilege. Bourdieu shows how it is the heir―structural and sometimes genealogical―of the noblesse de robe , which, in order to consolidate its position in relation to other forms of power, had to construct the modern state and the republican myths, meritocracy, and civil service that went along with it. Combining ethnographic description, historical documentation, statistical analysis, and theoretical argument, Bourdieu develops a wide-ranging and highly original account of the forms of power and governance that have come to prevail in our society today.
502 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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About the author
Pierre Bourdieu
356 books1,334 followersBourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location, and symbolic violence to reveal the dynamics of power relations in social life. His work emphasized the role of practice and embodiment or forms in social dynamics and worldview construction, often in opposition to universalized Western philosophical traditions. He built upon the theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, Georges Canguilhem, Karl Marx, Gaston Bachelard, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Erwin Panofsky, and Marcel Mauss. A notable influence on Bourdieu was Blaise Pascal, after whom Bourdieu titled his Pascalian Meditations.
Bourdieu rejected the idea of the intellectual "prophet", or the "total intellectual", as embodied by Sartre. His best known book is Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, in which he argues that judgments of taste are related to social position. His argument is put forward by an original combination of social theory and data from surveys, photographs and interviews, in an attempt to reconcile difficulties such as how to understand the subject within objective structures. In the process, he tried to reconcile the influences of both external social structures and subjective experience on the individual (see structure and agency).
Bourdieu rejected the idea of the intellectual "prophet", or the "total intellectual", as embodied by Sartre. His best known book is Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, in which he argues that judgments of taste are related to social position. His argument is put forward by an original combination of social theory and data from surveys, photographs and interviews, in an attempt to reconcile difficulties such as how to understand the subject within objective structures. In the process, he tried to reconcile the influences of both external social structures and subjective experience on the individual (see structure and agency).
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 10, 2021
Long, thick, complex, but ultimately very rewarding.
January 16, 2026
I’ve been supervising someone for a PhD. Her topic is the history of universities. When she started it, she was advised to use Bourdieu and given a list of books to read by him to get her into the headspace. I’m fond of Bourdieu, but I’m not sure I would have given her the books that were suggested. I would need to check, but I’m not sure this one was on the list. Which seems strange to me, as this, Reproduction and Homo Academicus (although, I haven’t read that one) would have been on the top of my list. She started some of the books, got confused, and ended up using other theories instead. This would have helped her understand how Bourdieu would have supported her thesis – but by then, she was put off him entirely, and not unreasonably.
This book is a bit like Distinction, in that it uses lots of data to make its point. And its point is that any society wants to make the reproduction of its elite appear to be as natural and merit based as possible – and this appearance hides the lack of merit that supports the anointment of the elite. Or consecration, as he says – the making of the elite into kinds of saints. For this consecration to work, it needs to be beyond reproach, as long as you are viewing it from within the ‘cultural arbitrary’ of the society itself. The idea of a cultural arbitrary is particularly interesting. It is the idea that certain things we do in society are presented as if they are just universally true, when they are rather just how we do things. They are also presented as being open and fair, whereas, they benefit some and reject others.
A case in point is who goes to which schools and universities and how they are streamed into these according to their background. There is endless talk in this of the various universities in France – and you’d really need a map to follow a lot of this, something I didn’t really do as I was reading it – and how they select students. Often this is not by marks alone, but following an interview. The point of the interview isn’t academic, as such – since their marks ought to be enough to show that – but rather if they have the habits and dispositions that would make them a good fit for the course. That is, you will be judged on things that are almost impossible to define – but that match the taste of the people assessing you.
But the point is to convince you, if you don’t get in, that it is your fault, rather than that you have been systematically discriminated against. The other point is for the elite to be able to pool their resources to ensure that they receive the best of what is on offer, while still pretending that their access to these resources is unbiased.
And when he talks of people being anointed by these institutions, he means this quite literally. While it remains true that there are hurdles that you need to jump to earn the degrees, all of the visual metaphors of these ceremonies resemble being inducted into a priesthood. What we are told you have to achieve to become one of the consecrated is always discussed in terms of technical skills that you have acquired in passing the degree. However, these are less clearly technical, or practical, than people assume – even for professions such as doctors of lawyers. And, although this might be less the case today, the most valuable degrees are the least practical or technical – philosophy, say – and so, it is harder to say what it is you have learned in such degrees. As he says somewhere, the least rewarded skill in these degrees is memorising facts. Rather, to succeed you need to mirror the habits and dispositions and distinctions of tone and style set by your professors. Again, the cultural arbitrary, rather than technical proficiency, per se.
If you haven’t read Bourdieu, I probably wouldn’t start here. I would probably start with Distinction. Also remember that he is particularly hard at the start of his books. Like people (including Marx himself) recommend when reading Capital, maybe skip the first couple of chapters of any of Bourdieu’s books and come back to them at the end. With Reproduction, probably skip the whole first part of the book. But the ideas here are a textbook example of the application of Bourdieu’s ideas. Even so, for a book that does much the same and has perhaps more direct relevance to things that directly impact us today, perhaps read his Social Structures of the Economy. He’s a challenging read, but he pays you back for the effort you expend.
This book is a bit like Distinction, in that it uses lots of data to make its point. And its point is that any society wants to make the reproduction of its elite appear to be as natural and merit based as possible – and this appearance hides the lack of merit that supports the anointment of the elite. Or consecration, as he says – the making of the elite into kinds of saints. For this consecration to work, it needs to be beyond reproach, as long as you are viewing it from within the ‘cultural arbitrary’ of the society itself. The idea of a cultural arbitrary is particularly interesting. It is the idea that certain things we do in society are presented as if they are just universally true, when they are rather just how we do things. They are also presented as being open and fair, whereas, they benefit some and reject others.
A case in point is who goes to which schools and universities and how they are streamed into these according to their background. There is endless talk in this of the various universities in France – and you’d really need a map to follow a lot of this, something I didn’t really do as I was reading it – and how they select students. Often this is not by marks alone, but following an interview. The point of the interview isn’t academic, as such – since their marks ought to be enough to show that – but rather if they have the habits and dispositions that would make them a good fit for the course. That is, you will be judged on things that are almost impossible to define – but that match the taste of the people assessing you.
But the point is to convince you, if you don’t get in, that it is your fault, rather than that you have been systematically discriminated against. The other point is for the elite to be able to pool their resources to ensure that they receive the best of what is on offer, while still pretending that their access to these resources is unbiased.
And when he talks of people being anointed by these institutions, he means this quite literally. While it remains true that there are hurdles that you need to jump to earn the degrees, all of the visual metaphors of these ceremonies resemble being inducted into a priesthood. What we are told you have to achieve to become one of the consecrated is always discussed in terms of technical skills that you have acquired in passing the degree. However, these are less clearly technical, or practical, than people assume – even for professions such as doctors of lawyers. And, although this might be less the case today, the most valuable degrees are the least practical or technical – philosophy, say – and so, it is harder to say what it is you have learned in such degrees. As he says somewhere, the least rewarded skill in these degrees is memorising facts. Rather, to succeed you need to mirror the habits and dispositions and distinctions of tone and style set by your professors. Again, the cultural arbitrary, rather than technical proficiency, per se.
If you haven’t read Bourdieu, I probably wouldn’t start here. I would probably start with Distinction. Also remember that he is particularly hard at the start of his books. Like people (including Marx himself) recommend when reading Capital, maybe skip the first couple of chapters of any of Bourdieu’s books and come back to them at the end. With Reproduction, probably skip the whole first part of the book. But the ideas here are a textbook example of the application of Bourdieu’s ideas. Even so, for a book that does much the same and has perhaps more direct relevance to things that directly impact us today, perhaps read his Social Structures of the Economy. He’s a challenging read, but he pays you back for the effort you expend.
April 17, 2018
Antiquated but interesting.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews