The Power Elite
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Product Description
First published in 1956, The Power Elite stands as a contemporary classic of social science and social criticism. C. Wright Mills examines and critiques the organization of power in the United States, calling attention to three firmly interlocked prongs of power: the military, corporate, and political elite. The Power Elite can be read as a excellent account of what was taking place in America at the time it was written, but its underlying question of whether America is as democratic in practice as it is in theory continues to matter very much today.
What The Power Elite informed readers of in 1956 was how much the organization of power in America had changed during their lifetimes, and Alan Wolfe’s astute afterword to this new edition brings us up to date, illustrating how much more has changed since then. Wolfe sorts out what is helpful in Mills book and which of his predictions have not come to bear, laying out the radical changes in American capitalism, from intense global competition and the collapse of communism to rapid technological transformations and ever changing consumer tastes. The Power Elite has stimulated generations of readers to reflect about the kind of society they have and the kind of society they might want, and deserves to be read by every new generation.
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Highly disappointing book. Mills’s belief in the Power Elite–stating, in overly simplified terms–that certain people are installed in power, and this power is perpetuated through education, money, and influence. Mass movements are defunct, and only a handful of individuals knows what’s *really* going on. The main competing theory–pluralism, which states (in overly simplified form) that competing power centers will prevent one from emerging as the dominant force–seems to be much more useful when looking at today’s world. In Mills’s work, he identified the military, the government, and huge corporations as the power elite, and they all work together to keep it that way. Yet, today, the military is an extension of the government; the media have emerged as a much more powerful force than before; and mass movements, such as civil rights, have defied the “elites”. Arguing that the “new” power centers merely replace the ancient puts you in the pluralist camp–something Mills specifically dismissed.
The book itself is written very well, and his sources and statistics are fine. But they have not survived the test of time, and has largely been proved incorrect. This book is the centerpiece for power elite theory, so as a scholarly work it is at the top. It’s just that it’s, you know, incorrect.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
I want to preface this result by adage I do not have any all inclusive argument with Mills, partly because I reflect The Power Elite is a gigantic waste of the nearly 400 pages it is printed on. As a replacement for I will clarify my 3 largest problems with his and the others that we read for this week: 1) I have lost all (of the small I had beyond the weathermen) respect for the leaders of SDS if this really was their major text; 2) Mills fails in his attempt to separate the three structures of power which combine to make the power elite; 3) Mills offers no concept of power that is beyond economy and thus really significant in any way.
1) Maybe I’m bitter, but I can’t wrap my head around the thought that The Power Elite is still somehow specifically forwards thinking in it’s ascertains about the contemporary power structure of the United States. While I do not object to the fact that in 1956 Mills most certainly shocked the world of intellectuals, laymen and the elite with such a text, I question whether any of them had ever read Marx, Weber, Gramsci, Lenin or Hobbes. Additionally, while I certainly have no point like for the writers of the Port Huron Statement and the additional leaders of SDS, I now do not know what to reflect of their intellectual capacity to realize this on its most basic level lacking Mills bluntly and, in my opinion, wastefully spelling it out for them. Tom Hayden’s like for Mills’ motorcycle (Miller 87) is simply sad, James Dean rode a motorcycle too and I can only assume that Tom Hayden was a fan of his as well. Additionally, Bob Ross describing his hopelessness (Miller 87) after finishing may clarify why, sitting with his tenure at Clark University, he continues to bore his students with discussions of what he did while a member of SDS and never reaching beyond this simplified view of the American Elite.
2) I agree with Sweezy that Mills “assumes that there are distinct spheres of social life-the economic, the military and the political-each with its own institutional structure, that each of these spheres throws up its own leading cadres, and that the top men of all three come together to form the power elite.” (Sweezy 124) Still Mills completely fails in really separating any of these elites from what he refuses to call an American Landed gentry or Ruling Class. His consistent pestering about Ivy League education, Mrs. John Jay and the Vanderbilts prove that he is ignoring his own findings in order to prove his grander point. While it is hard to begrudge him that specifically (as most theorists do at some point in order to write their theory), I will do so anyway, because it is simply blindness. This is not just in his first seven chapters, which easily could have been 2, but throughout the text.
He gives no description of a political elite at any time that did not originate in the military or bourgeoisie (my term). Sure he speaks of professional politicians, but concludes that they no longer hold power (Mills 231). His military elite descends from excellent families and differ only from the Metropolitan 400 in that they have a heightened family tree tradition of military service and attend West Point or Annapolis as a replacement for of Harvard or Yale (it should be noted that Mills only mentions Columbia, where he was tenured, four times compared to his consistent railing against rich people who go to Yale, Harvard, Penn and Princeton). In his analysis, each of these groups is different despite originating in the same society. This to me separates them not at all.
3) Mills does not offer any definition of power, but only attempts to identify who holds power. In doing so, he really does define power as economic power and all that such allows. Still this completely ignores any additional potential source. To Mills, military is money, celebrity is money, politics is money and money is money… I could have learned that reading Marx. Additionally they are ever-present, I could have learned that reading Hobbes. They make up the state as it is, defined by bureaucracy and limits (Weber) and the only way to break this is a combination of the intelligentsia and the effective class (Lenin, Plekhanov). If Mills was alive, I would challenge him on all of this, but not having that opportunity, I can only be disappointed in his failure.
Works Cited
C. Wright Mills (1956): The Power Elite
James Miller: Democracy is in the Streets
Paul M. Sweezy: Power Elite or Ruling Class
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Very much Insightful- ‘elitest’
Controversial Sociologist – C Wright Mills
Eloquent – Individual vs Social history
Written in the 1950’s Mills attempts to clarify the how and why social separation occurs in society (states).
The book is written for the scholastic forum or arguementive intellectual coffee crowd. Thursday night “Book club” readers may not like it’s intensity.
…
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
The message is as significant today as when it was originally open.
A +
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
One of the largest quandaries amongst Nationalists, Communists and ‘The Left’ is the lack of understanding on how this country really operates – this lack thereof is predominantly from latter rather than the formers. The leader’s exposition is one of the most lucid I’ve ever come across. Arguably the strongest point of this work is his stratification of the Elite and his analysis – psycho and sociological – of each layer’s interface and interplay. Very few books are as penetrating as this in terms of the psychological make-up of the Elite. We cannot dismantle this system unless we know how it functions and this book is one that can bring us comprehensively closer – if it isn’t too late already.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5