It is the Elites Who Create the System
By La Rédaction · Port-au-Prince · · 4 min read · Updated 24 April 2026
Translated from French — AI-assisted and reviewed by the editorial team. The French version is authoritative. Read the original · About our translation policy
Last Thursday, November 27, I read a very interesting but somewhat confusing article published in a Haitian newspaper under the title: "The problem is not the elites; it is the system that creates them." Far from wanting to engage in a polemic, and contrary to the author of the text, whose writing is otherwise meticulous, I believe that the problem lies primarily with the elites themselves. For, fundamentally, aren't they the ones who shape the system?
Before arguing this position, it is important to clarify the two key concepts that structure the debate: elites and the system. I. Elites In political science, the term elite refers to a restricted group of individuals occupying positions of power, influence, or prestige, and possessing a disproportionate capacity to guide collective choices. Elites are not limited to political leaders. They include:
high-ranking officials, business leaders and major economic actors, religious leaders, intellectuals and producers of meaning, and sometimes even international actors exerting decisive influence on local society.
Traditionally, an elite is distinguished by three characteristics:
1. Privileged access to resources (financial, educational, symbolic).
2. The ability to impose a vision, influence opinion, or determine the rules of the political game.
3. Internal reproduction, meaning the ability to ensure the continuity of its power through networks, alliances, or co-optation strategies.
In Haiti, the elite, whether political, economic, or intellectual, plays a fundamental role in structuring the state, defining public policies, and creating norms. The way it exercises this power determines the very nature of the system. II. The System The system refers to the set of institutions, mechanisms, formal and informal rules, practices, and representations that organize the functioning of a society.
It encompasses: political structures (the state, its laws, its administrations); economic structures (markets, resource control, access to capital); social structures (mobility, inequalities, opportunities, collective values). A system can be virtuous when its rules promote transparency, accountability, social justice, and public efficiency. It can also be flawed when it produces corruption, exclusion, nepotism, impunity, clientelism, and the reproduction of inequalities. But a system never exists ex nihilo. It is designed, adjusted, instrumentalized, or blocked by those who have the power to do so: the elites. III. Argumentation: How Elites Create the System To argue that “the system creates the elites” may seem appealing. But this view reverses causality.
Certainly, a system can influence behaviors, encouraging or discouraging certain profiles. But the original system, as well as its transformations, is always the work of the elites. Here's why. 1. Elites Define the Rules of the Game Whether it concerns the Constitution, laws, administrative organization, or public policies, it is the political and institutional elites who decide the frameworks within which society operates.
When a rule serves their interests, they strengthen it.
When it constrains them, they circumvent it, repeal it, or distort it. 2. Economic Elites Structure Power Relations In Haiti, a minority holds a disproportionate share of the national wealth.
This economic power directly influences: the formation of governments, parliamentary decisions,
opportunities offered or denied to the entire population. Thus, market functioning, access to credit, import dependence, or the fragility of productive investment are less a matter of a “neutral system” than of choices made by economic elites. 3. Cultural and Intellectual Elites Legitimise the System Discourses produced in educational institutions (at both primary and secondary levels), universities, media, cultural, or religious spaces also contribute to the reproduction of the system. It is these elites who dictate what is acceptable, normal, possible, or impossible.
They shape the collective imagination, and thus how the population perceives power. 4. The System Changes When Elites Change Universal history shows us that systems transform when elites are renewed, challenged, or replaced.
Dominican, French, Bolshevik, Chinese, American, Cuban revolutions, anti-colonial or anti-imperialist movements, democratic transitions:
at each stage, it was the emerging elites who dismantled the old system to create a new one. If Haitian elites produce a dysfunctional, unequal, or predatory system, it is because they pursue strategies of power preservation at the expense of the collective interest. Therefore, it is not the system that creates these behaviors; it is these behaviors that shape the system. Ultimately, to say that "the system creates the elites" is to confuse cause and effect. It would be more accurate to state that elites create the system, shape it, use it, and reproduce it according to their interests. If the Haitian system is failing, it is primarily because its political, economic, and intellectual elites have chosen to build it that way. True reform must therefore begin with a profound transformation of the elites themselves. Pierre Josué Agénor Cadet
Before arguing this position, it is important to clarify the two key concepts that structure the debate: elites and the system. I. Elites In political science, the term elite refers to a restricted group of individuals occupying positions of power, influence, or prestige, and possessing a disproportionate capacity to guide collective choices. Elites are not limited to political leaders. They include:
high-ranking officials, business leaders and major economic actors, religious leaders, intellectuals and producers of meaning, and sometimes even international actors exerting decisive influence on local society.
Traditionally, an elite is distinguished by three characteristics:
1. Privileged access to resources (financial, educational, symbolic).
2. The ability to impose a vision, influence opinion, or determine the rules of the political game.
3. Internal reproduction, meaning the ability to ensure the continuity of its power through networks, alliances, or co-optation strategies.
In Haiti, the elite, whether political, economic, or intellectual, plays a fundamental role in structuring the state, defining public policies, and creating norms. The way it exercises this power determines the very nature of the system. II. The System The system refers to the set of institutions, mechanisms, formal and informal rules, practices, and representations that organize the functioning of a society.
It encompasses: political structures (the state, its laws, its administrations); economic structures (markets, resource control, access to capital); social structures (mobility, inequalities, opportunities, collective values). A system can be virtuous when its rules promote transparency, accountability, social justice, and public efficiency. It can also be flawed when it produces corruption, exclusion, nepotism, impunity, clientelism, and the reproduction of inequalities. But a system never exists ex nihilo. It is designed, adjusted, instrumentalized, or blocked by those who have the power to do so: the elites. III. Argumentation: How Elites Create the System To argue that “the system creates the elites” may seem appealing. But this view reverses causality.
Certainly, a system can influence behaviors, encouraging or discouraging certain profiles. But the original system, as well as its transformations, is always the work of the elites. Here's why. 1. Elites Define the Rules of the Game Whether it concerns the Constitution, laws, administrative organization, or public policies, it is the political and institutional elites who decide the frameworks within which society operates.
When a rule serves their interests, they strengthen it.
When it constrains them, they circumvent it, repeal it, or distort it. 2. Economic Elites Structure Power Relations In Haiti, a minority holds a disproportionate share of the national wealth.
This economic power directly influences: the formation of governments, parliamentary decisions,
opportunities offered or denied to the entire population. Thus, market functioning, access to credit, import dependence, or the fragility of productive investment are less a matter of a “neutral system” than of choices made by economic elites. 3. Cultural and Intellectual Elites Legitimise the System Discourses produced in educational institutions (at both primary and secondary levels), universities, media, cultural, or religious spaces also contribute to the reproduction of the system. It is these elites who dictate what is acceptable, normal, possible, or impossible.
They shape the collective imagination, and thus how the population perceives power. 4. The System Changes When Elites Change Universal history shows us that systems transform when elites are renewed, challenged, or replaced.
Dominican, French, Bolshevik, Chinese, American, Cuban revolutions, anti-colonial or anti-imperialist movements, democratic transitions:
at each stage, it was the emerging elites who dismantled the old system to create a new one. If Haitian elites produce a dysfunctional, unequal, or predatory system, it is because they pursue strategies of power preservation at the expense of the collective interest. Therefore, it is not the system that creates these behaviors; it is these behaviors that shape the system. Ultimately, to say that "the system creates the elites" is to confuse cause and effect. It would be more accurate to state that elites create the system, shape it, use it, and reproduce it according to their interests. If the Haitian system is failing, it is primarily because its political, economic, and intellectual elites have chosen to build it that way. True reform must therefore begin with a profound transformation of the elites themselves. Pierre Josué Agénor Cadet
