Mosca’s political class and Pareto’s elite are earlier versions of Gramsci’s intellectuals concept

Evidence

Mosca’s so-called “political class” 3 is nothing other than the intellectual category of the dominant social group. Mosca’s concept of “political class” can be connected with Pareto’s concept of the elite, which is another attempt to interpret the historical phenomenon of the intellectuals and their function in the life of the state and of society. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 254

Categorization

• XREF: Situates ‘the intellectuals’ concept within the Italian elite-theory lineage (Mosca, Pareto) that Gramsci reworks into hegemony theory.