The Olympic Ruling Class

The formation and institutionalization of the International Olympics Committee (IOC) and the modern Olympic Games in the 1890s was carried out by European aristocratic and capitalist elites at a time when industrialization, monopoly capitalism and the republican-democratic project were coalescing. They were motivated by a commitment to educational reform involving physical education and sport so as to establish domestic equilibrium among the social classes and military preparedness for future wars. Despite the growing chasm between those ideals and twentieth century historical realities the IOC leadership clung to its ideals until the early 1970s, above all its commitment to a non-profit approach based on amateur competition and opposition to the commercialization and commodification of the Olympic Games. This was reinforced by those who joined the IOC between 1945 and 1972 from Communist and Third World states. The Olympic Movement was radically altered when the IOC leadership, beginning in 1972, transformed its economic orientation and structures to generating unprecedented sums of revenue. This was not just a matter of IOC presidents Lord Killanin, Juan Antonio Samaranch and Jacques Rogge being themselves capitalists or closely affiliated with capitalist interests. There was nothing new in this. What determined the change was the institutional imperative to survive the structural crisis of capitalism beginning in the 1970s and how the IOC learned to promote neoliberal globalization and operate and prosper within it. The IOC needs to be seen as an important place of ruling class formation. The significance of this today is especially marked in terms of what the Olympic Games in Beijing and Sochi represent in terms of the rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and their ruling classes within global capitalism. But no less significant, as can especially be seen with respect to the run up to the 2016 Rio Games in Brazil, may be the contradictions this is throwing up