Moses admired a civil service with a rigidly closed upper class

Evidence

What Moses admired in the British civil service was that it had two separate and distinct classes: a very small administrative and policy-making “upper division” reserved for “university men,” and a much larger “lower division” consisting of “clerks of ordinary education” selected through examinations on the high-school level who “do the lower and more mechanical work.” The class differentiation that Moses admired was a rigid one. Carefully placed technical hurdles made it difficult, almost impossible, for a young man, even one of dedication, industry, ambition and talent, to rise out of the lower division. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 234

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Moses dismissed classless civil service as ‘false democracy’ — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 236; Young Moses modeled ideal American civil service on the British Oxford-centered system. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 244; Moses’ doctoral thesis advocated elite-only government service — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 311 (+1 more)