11.4.2: The Conflict Perspective: The Power Elite
If you focus on the lobbyists scurrying around Washington, conflict theorists stress, you get a blurred image of superficial activities. What really counts is the big picture, not its fragments. The important question is, Who holds the power that determines the country’s overarching policies? For example, who determines interest rates and their impact on the price of our homes?
Who sets policies that encourage the transfer of jobs from the United States to countries where labor costs less?
And the ultimate question of power: Who is behind the decision to go to war?
Sociologist C. Wright Mills (1956) took the position that the country’s most important matters are not decided by lobbyists or even by Congress. Rather, the decisions that have the greatest impact on the lives of Americans—and people across the globe—are made by a power elite.
As you can see from Figure 11.2,
the power elite consists of the top leaders of the largest corporations, the most powerful generals and admirals of the armed forces, and certain elite politicians—the president, the president’s cabinet, and senior members of Congress who chair the major committees.
It is they who wield power, who make the decisions that direct the country and shake the world.
Figure 11.2 Power in the United States: The Model Proposed by C. Wright Mills
Are the three groups that make up the power elite—the top business, political, and military leaders—equal in power? Mills said that they were not, but he didn’t point to the president and his staff or even to the generals and admirals as the most powerful. Instead, he said that the corporate leaders are the most dominant. Because all three segments of the power elite view capitalism as essential to the welfare of the country, Mills said that business interests take center stage in setting national policy.
Sociologist William Domhoff (2017) uses the term ruling class to refer to the power elite.
He focuses on the 1 percent of Americans who belong to the super-rich, the powerful capitalist class analyzed in Chapter 8.
Members of this class control our top corporations and foundations, even the boards that oversee our major universities.
It is no accident, says Domhoff, that from this group come most members of the president’s cabinet and the ambassadors to the most powerful countries of the world.
In Sum Conflict theorists take the position that a power elite dominates the United States.
With connections that extend to the highest centers of power, this ruling class determines the economic and political conditions under which the rest of the country operates.
They say that we should not think of the power elite (or ruling class) as some secret group that meets to agree on specific matters.
Rather, the group’s unity springs from its members having similar backgrounds and orientations to life. They have attended prestigious private schools, belong to exclusive clubs, and are millionaires many times over. Their behavior stems not from some grand conspiracy to control the country but from a mutual interest in solving the problems that face big business.
definition:
- a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.
