Even then, some of the most elite of public schools including Eton, Winchester and Dulwich engaged in bursary and scholarship schemes to help the disadvantaged receive a superior education. The outgoing headmaster of Eton today, Tony Little, was himself an Etonian whose fees were considerably subsidised given his family's economic circumstances. Granted, those who receive financial assistance at such institutions are undoubtedly a small minority – even in today's political climate, only 20% of current Etonians receive means tested financial assistance, but these schemes' existence in the first place surely dispels any notion of the ruling class's attempts to keep their realm entirely exclusive. .
Perhaps Miliband, when quoting the statistics regarding the ownership of family-named companies, overlooks the fact that many of these companies would have been started within the post-war era – and would, therefore, still be owned and run by the very individuals who founded them. Upon examination, it seems this holds true for approximately 40% of these companies at the time (source: Fortune Archives). This appears to devalue the argument further, seeing as this leaves only 14% of such companies being held within a family ownership after the first generation. Miliband's assessment of the managerial system's challenge to the otherwise inaccessible elite is fairly skeptical. Firstly, he examines the notion that the managers appointed by the owners of large companies do in fact constitute a new class, one that is 'moved by considerations other than those of the owners better, less "selfish", more "socially responsible" and more closely concerned with the "public interest" than old style capitalism' (p30) – surely a positive thing as the notion sees them as the future 'rulers of society' (p30). This, to Miliband, is merely an extension of what he sees as the preservation of corporations: quoting Industry and Society's 'Gaitskellite inspiration' that 'under increasingly professional managements, large firms are as a whole serving the nation well' (p31).