Various conservative theorists developed concepts of mass society in which it replaces aristocracies with the "tyranny of the majority" or "mob rule" and José Ortega y Gasset, for instance, lamented the decline of high culture.
Marxist accounts, such as those of the Frankfurt School, critiqued the prevailing forms of mass society as one dominated by a culture industry that served the interests of capitalism.
Mass society as an ideology can be seen as dominated by a small number of interconnected elites who control the conditions of life of the many, often by means of persuasion and manipulation.
"Since then, government has assumed responsibility for more and more areas of social life: schooling, regulating wages and working conditions, establishing standards for products of all sorts, and providing financial assistance to the elderly, the ill, and the unemployed."
Although such regulations may protect and enhance social equality, they also force individuals to deal increasingly with nameless officials in distant and often unresponsive bureaucracies, and they undermine the autonomy of families and local communities.