The Power Elite

“Families and churches and schools adapt to modern life; governments and armies and corporations shape it; and, as they do so, they turn these lesser institutions into means for their ends.”

The economic, governmental, and military realms drive events and make history. Other institutions are transformed by decisions made in these realms. Schools, for example, appease corporate interests by changing their curricula to train individuals for business careers.

“Today, to remain merely local is to fail; it is to be overshadowed by the wealth, the power, and the status of nationally important men.”

The elite power players of the US operate at a national level. As corporations have increased in size to service national markets and, in the process, put local providers out of business, the leaders of the economy, the military, and the government have also made those operating at the local level inconsequential.

“Money—sheer, naked, vulgar money—has with few exceptions won its possessors entrance anywhere and everywhere into American society.”

Although there was some tension between the old guard of the upper class and those with new money during the Gilded Age, the latter managed to gain entry into American high society. Such individuals had the money to send their children to the right schools and clubs. Indeed, the upper class in the US is defined solely by its money, as it is not an aristocracy of merit or one that is based in bloodlines.

“The less important the pedigreed family becomes in the careful transmission of moral and cultural traits, the more important the private school.”

As those with newly-created wealth entered the upper class in the late 19th century, a uniform socialization became an important defining element of this class. More important than colleges, members of this class attended elite boarding schools. At these schools, members of the upper class are trained in attitude and behavior and groomed for power.

“An elite cannot acquire prestige without power; it cannot retain prestige without reputation. Its past power and success builds a reputation, on which it can coast for a while. But it is no longer possible for the power of an elite based on reputation alone to be maintained against reputation that is based on power.”

While brute power alone cannot guarantee prestige, these two concepts are increasingly tied to each other. The elite tier works to cultivate prestige because it reduces the likelihood that its power will be challenged. It is a means to gain authority without providing any rationale or basis for such authority.

“Although men sometimes shape institutions, institutions always select and form men.”

The power elite of the mid-20th century exercise their power through institutions, such as large corporations and the military. The individuals in the top positions are shaped by the institutions they serve and others, such as prestigious private schools. As a result, there is similarity in traits among the elite.

“The accumulation of advantages at the very top parallels the vicious cycle of poverty at the very bottom.”

The percentage of people from middle and lower classes entering the upper class has dramatically declined from the turn of the century. Money begets money, with the richest people earning their wealth from investments, not wages. That wealth also buys access to the private schools of the elite.

“The idea of a really wide distribution of economic ownership is a cultivated illusion: at the very most, 0.2 or 0.3 per cent of the adult population own the bulk, the pay-off shares, of the corporate world.”

It is a tiny minority of Americans who benefit from corporate wealth. Corporate success produces the greatest benefits for the wealthy. Corporate executives make fundamental and consequential decisions to ensure the continuation of the current system and its hierarchy of wealth.

“When one reads the speeches and reports of executives about the type of man that is required, one cannot avoid this simple conclusion: he must ‘fit in’ with those already at the top.”

Mills highlights the subjective and arbitrary nature of the selection process for top corporate executives. They are not elevated to their positions because of test scores, accomplishments, or virtues. Instead, they are conformists who resemble those at the top in style and temperament.

“In fact, no one can become rich or stay rich in America today without becoming involved, in one way or another, in the world of the corporate rich.”

The upper class derives its income from investments, not salaries and wages, and virtually all those investments are in corporations. As a result, all in the upper class have an interest in corporate profitability and success.

“The military world bears decisively upon its inhabitants because it selects its recruits carefully and breaks up their previously acquired values; it isolates them from civilian society and it standardizes their career and deportment throughout their lives.”

Although there is a strong socialization process for all members of the elite, it is particularly effective for the military elite. Given the discipline in the military and the rotation of assignments, the top leaders become strikingly similar in outlook and appearance.

“Historically, the warlords have been only uneasy, poor relations within the American elite; now they are first cousins; soon they may become elder brothers.”

The elite leaders of the military are gaining power relative to political leaders. The American tradition of civilian control of the military is challenged by the development of nuclear weapons and the permanent state of emergency their presence entails. Mills argues that the elite and the general populace accept this military version of reality unquestioningly and have, therefore, delegated important decisions to the military elite.

“For unless the military sat in on corporate decisions, they could not be sure that their programs would be carried out; and unless the corporate chieftains knew something of the war plans, they could not plan war production.”

During World War II, corporate and military ties were created and strengthened at the top levels. In the postwar years, that alliance flourished because corporate and military interests aligned. Mills observes that the top members of the power elite have held positions in both sectors.

“Thus, while the general effect of the act was to limit very greatly the number of vicious appointments, at the same time the effect of these exceptions was to confine them to the upper grades, where the demoralizing effects of each upon the service would be a maximum.”

Quoting an English observer of American bureaucracy, which includes the State Department, Mills argues that the political appointments of the top tiers undermine the civil service system and prevent the truly meritorious and experienced personnel from rising into positions of leadership. With unqualified leaders, the State Department, for example, lost power to the military elite.

“The differences between the two parties, so far as national issues are concerned, are very narrow and very mixed up.”

In the mid-20th century, the Republicans and Democrats are not national parties with well-defined ideologies and platforms. Instead, they are organized at the state and local levels with varying agendas. As a result, members of Congress campaign on local issues and are increasingly willing to delegate the resolution of national issues to the executive branch. This leaves the voting public no opportunity to register its choice of national policies via elections.

“The executive bureaucracy becomes not only the center of power but also the arena within which and in terms of which all conflicts of power are resolved or denied resolution. Administration replaces electoral politics; the maneuvering of cliques replaces the clash of parties.”

As Congress abdicates its responsibility to resolve national issues legislatively, the executive branch assumes more power. Instead of legislation, executive orders and administrative rules determine outcomes. Experts, or insulated elites, drive decisions, instead of having elected politicians express the will of the broader population.

“The simple Marxian view makes the big economic man the real holder of power; the simple liberal view makes the big political man the chief of the power system; and there are some who would view the warlords as virtual dictators. Each of these is an oversimplified view.”

Mills emphasizes the interlocking ties among the three sectors of the military, business, and the executive branch; some individuals assume top positions in more than one sector during their lives. He uses the term “power elite” to capture the connections, including social relationships and similarity of personnel, among the three sectors. He is careful to distinguish this power elite from an aristocracy or a conspiracy.

“To ask a man suddenly to divest himself of these interests and sensibilities is almost like asking a man to become a woman.”

The power elite are socialized to adopt a particular perspective. Given the strength of that socialization, it is not possible for them to adopt an objective stance. Mills notes that this does not mean its members are behaving with dishonor; rather, they adhere to the upper class’s code of honor and are incapable of viewing their decisions through a different lens.

“But now we must recognize this description as a set of images out of a fairy tale: they are not adequate even as an approximate model of how the American system of power works. The issues that now shape man’s fate are neither raised nor decided by the public at large.”

In the mid-20th century US, Americans do not drive the most consequential decisions via their participation in elections. Instead, the power elite make the critical decisions and present those decisions as givens or necessities. They use propaganda to sell their decisions and do not engage the citizenry in a debate over alternatives.

“[T]here is the increased dependence upon the formal media of communication, including those of education itself. But the man in the mass does not gain a transcending view from these media; instead he gets his experience stereotyped, and then he gets sunk further by that experience.”

Mills argues that American society is transforming from a public to a mass one. Individuals in a mass society are not empowered, nor are they given the educational skills to understand the power structure and question it. The media, in both news and entertainment, define the identity and aspirations of individuals, thereby creating conformity and apathy.

“By its softening of the political will, this mood enables men to accept public depravity without any private sense of outrage, and to give up the central goal of western humanism, so strongly felt in nineteenth-century American experience: the presumptuous control by reason of man’s fate.”

Mills is referring to a conservative mood among public-image makers and scholars. Classical conservatism defends tradition against reason and accepts the leadership of an elite. The problem with this outlook is twofold: It is antithetical to American ideals, and the members of the power elite do not conform to models of conservative excellence.

“It is, in fact, because of the dominance of such liberal terms and assumptions that no need is felt by the elite of power and wealth for an explicitly conservative ideology.”

Those professing the conservative mood insist that market forces shape society, with a minimal role for authorities to make decisions. This is no longer the case in the 1950s. Yet the loud and constant insistence on this reality allows the power elite to rule without an ideological justification.

“Being justified by superior merit and hard work, but being founded on co-optation by a clique, often on quite other grounds, the elite careerist must continually persuade others and himself as well that he is the opposite of what he actually is.”

Members of the elite are not selected because of their merit, hard work, or virtue. Instead, they are chosen for their similarity to those in power, attributes cultivated via an intentional socialization process. However, they pretend to themselves and others that they are in high positions because of their talents.