Non-elite Check on Elites re: X-Risk

This is an addendum to my review of X-Risk. In it, I mentioned that it would be necessary to provide the general populace with a sufficiently motivating culture if we want to safeguard civilization, because as long as they are in power, they can affect how assiduous we are in avoiding X-risk, and we want them to have power so that an elite doesn't form separate of them and develop an insular culture that leads to the annihilation or oppression of the non-elites.

I wondered today if there were ways we could imagine a lack of democracy not being dangerous for the general populace. One way to make this work is to have the elite mixing with and knowing personally members of the general populace, in a way that all demographics are represented among the people the elite can become close to. However, in the days of legal slavery, slaveowners were physically close to some of their slaves, and also in some ways intimate with them, without abolishing slavery. So maybe that's a count against the idea that people will be automatically attuned to people just by mixing with them.

Perhaps there could be some kind of elite education which is in the hands of the general populace, making sure that the elite are formed by non-elite. It's possible for elites to be like police officers, some forming gangs within the whole. They could pretend to be normal non-elite-respecting people but secretly think otherwise, abetted by their gang culture. But we could hope that the intervention of the vigilant non-elites might be able to prevent this from happening.

If we are going to have a check on elites by non-elites, then the non-elites still need to be on board with whatever goals are really important, such as avoiding X-risk, wireheading, or hardening. Elites may passively absorb non-elite culture, or be held in check by non-elites who are themselves affected by non-elite culture.