The power elite

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In his elite-sociological work The Power Elite (1956), German Die American Elite (1962) and Die Machtelite (2019), the American sociologist C. Wright Mills analyzes the intertwined power structures of the dominant military, corporate and political sectors in the United States Post war period. As a result, the common man appears to be a relatively powerless object to manipulate this elite triangle. Liberal democracy, education and the media follow the guidelines of the elites and thereby lose their original character. Mill's analysis is at the same time a call to change the situation by creating a "critical public". Mill's work is a milestone in the critical elite sociology and a classic of political sociology , which, however, has hardly been received academically in Germany.

background

Mill's study is based on the sociology of Max Weber ( concept of power ) and Karl Marx (concept of alienation ) and continues the elite sociology of Pareto , Michels' and Moscas .

The book is the end of the "Trilogy of Power Structures", which includes The New Men of Power (1948) and White Collar from 1951. In the latter work he examined the then growing role of middle managers in American society.

A major inspiration for Mill's work was Franz Leopold Neumann's study Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism from 1942. Neumann explained how National Socialism could take power in a democratic state like Germany:

The power in Germany lies with monopoly capitalists, especially in heavy industry, in the Nazi party, the state bureaucracy and the armed forces ... from these four sides interests converge towards the central goal: constant preparation and maintenance of the imperialist war. These interests are anchored in the entire structure of society, but especially in violence and production. To see this clearly means to see the structure of this regime as a whole thing called Behemoth .

Mills said Behemoth gave him "the tools to understand and analyze the whole structure" as a warning of what might happen in a modern capitalist democracy , particularly in the United States, with an eye to:

The analysis of the Behemoth sheds light on capitalism in democracies. Neumann has thus made a contribution to the most important task of political analysis. If you read his work carefully, you can see the sharp outlines of future opportunities in your immediate vicinity.

Summary

The Joint Chiefs of Staff , 1949, represent four of the six ruling elites that Mills identified.

According to Mills, " power elites " are groups of people who occupy dominant positions in the dominant military, economic, and political institutions of a dominant country . Your choices (or lack of choices) have enormous consequences, not only for the US population, but also for "the world's sub-populations." The institutions they head, Mills said, are a triumvirate of groups that have succeeded their weaker predecessors:

(1) "two or three hundred huge corporations" that have replaced traditional agriculture and handicrafts,

(2) a strong federal political order that inherited the power of "a decentralized group of several dozen states" and "now invades every single corner of the social fabric", and

(3) the military establishment, formerly an object of "mistrust nurtured by the state militia" but now an entity with "all the grim and clumsy efficiency of an expanding bureaucratic realm".

Contrary to modern American conspiracy theories , Mills states that the elite themselves may not be aware of their status as elite, noting that "they are often unsure of their role" and "go on without conscious effort to ... To be the undecided ".

Nevertheless, he sees them as a kind of hereditary caste. The members of the power elite, Mills said, often hold positions of social importance through training at universities such as Harvard, Princeton and Yale. But, says Mills, "Harvard or Yale or Princeton are not enough ... it's not about Harvard, but which Harvard? Mills distinguishes between two classes of Ivy League graduates: those who are in a high-ranking fraternity or a final club how the Porcellian and the Fly Club were accepted, and those who are not. Those so initiated, Mills said, receive their invitations based on social connections initially established in private elite preparatory academies where they are part of the on In this way, membership of the elite is passed on in the family.

Historically prominent families like the Kennedy family make up the "Metropolitan 400". Pictured here are Rose and Joseph Kennedy in 1940.

The resulting elites, who control the three dominant institutions (military, economic and political system), can generally be classified as one of six types, according to Mills:

  • the "Metropolitan 400" - members of historically notable local families in major American cities who are generally featured on the social registry
  • "Celebrities" - entertainers and media personalities
  • the "Chief Executives" - Presidents and CEOs of the most important companies in each industrial sector
  • the "business elite - large landowners and corporate shareholders
  • the "warlords" - high-ranking military officers, especially the chiefs of staff
  • the "Political Directorate" - "some fifty executive men" of the US federal government, including senior executives in the executive office of the President, sometimes made up of elected officials from the Democratic and Republican parties, but usually professional government officials.

Mills formulated a very brief summary of his book: "After all, who rules America? Nobody rules it as a whole, but, as far as any group does, the power elite".

Further development of the theory in Mills' work

C. Wright Mills worked on expanding his theory of elites. In The Sociological Imagination , he stated that the problems of Western countries are almost inevitably problems of the world. For the first time in history and typical of the present, the interactions between social forms are said to be. In The Causes of World War III , Mills wrote that imperialism includes the interaction of economic, political and military institutions and people ... The international system of today's world cannot be understood without the changed forms of this interaction.

Reception and impact history

The term "power elite" goes back mainly to the work of Mills.

Mills' work was criticized by the representatives of the functional theory of the elites, who for the most part see a positive function of the elites for the stability of democracy and reject grassroots models. Pierre Bourdieu developed a similar critical theory of the elites, in part with reference to Mills with his theories of social space and the social field .

The warning of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell speech on January 17, 1961 about the entanglements and influences of the "military-industrial complex " in the USA goes back to Mills.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. mockingly said that he was looking forward to the time when Mills shed his prophetic cloak and returned to work as a sociologist.

Adolf Berle stated that the book contained "an unpleasant level of truth", but Mills had presented "an aggressive comic, not a serious picture". Dennis Wrong described The Power Elite as "an inappropriate mix of journalism, sociology and moral indignation".

The Louisiana Law Review review complained that the risk of pessimistic interpretation of the current situation is that the reader would focus on the bias claims rather than the results of his really impressive research.

Nevertheless, the assessment of the book has become a little more favorable over time. In 2006 G. William Domhoff wrote: "Mills looks even better than 50 years ago". Mills' biographer, John Summers, admitted that the power elite were "vulnerable to charges of conspiracy" but stated that their historical value "seems certain".

In his dissertation, Muhamad A. Asadi continues Mill's work by analyzing the power elite in the globalized world - in contrast to Immanuel Wallerstein's world system theory . A militarized global system in the Third World, as Asadi assumes, cannot, in his opinion, only be explained economically. Global institutions such as WTO, OECD, IMF and World Bank, UN and NATO are decisive power factors in the interplay of the international elites of the various countries. This is dominated by "command states". The war economy of the USA is decisive for a Keynesian stabilization with simultaneous economic accumulation. He describes countries as "militarized states" whose economic growth stabilizes the world system led by the command states (in contrast to Wallerstein's core theorem, which, however, includes both financial and trade dominance as well as military and political dominance), as does military spending in the USA stabilize the US economy. Militarization and wars would therefore be promoted and facilitated by the "states of command", just as described by Mills in The Causes of World War Three (1958). The permanent increase in war preparation ultimately necessarily leads to wars.

David Rothkopf takes up Mills' work. He estimates the "global power elite", which he calls "Super Class" in his book of the same name, at 6000 people, for whom he develops a list . About 50 years after Mills, he expanded his approach to include the global dimension. He warns that the "masterminds of world politics" also did good things, but they are not suited to "... watch over the global public interest. That would mean turning the buck into a gardener."

See also

literature

  • The Power Elite, London, New York (Oxford Press) 1956.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Kopp, Bernhard Schäfers: Basic concepts of sociology . Springer-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-16985-9 ( com.ph [accessed April 22, 2020]).
  2. ↑ Morten Reitmayer: Elite: Social history of a political-social idea in the early Federal Republic . Walter de Gruyter, 2014, ISBN 978-3-486-70730-4 ( com.ph [accessed April 22, 2020]).
  3. ^ Review of Franz Neumann's Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism . Volume 4, Partisan Review (September-October, 1942), pp. 432-437; in Power, Politics and People, pp. 170-178.
  4. ↑ Power in Germany is Deposited with monopoly capitalists, love especially in the heavily industrial sectors; the Nazi Party; the state bureaucracy; and the armed forces. .. From these four angles, interests, anchored in the entire social structure but especially in violence and production, coalesce into the central aim: continual preparation and maintenance of imperialist war. To grasp this clearly is to see the structure of the regime as a total thing, called Behemoth.
  5. ^ C. Wright Mills: Power, Politics and People. (New York, 1963 p.174)
  6. ↑ "The analysis of Behemoth casts light upon capitalism in democracies. To the most important task of political analysis Neumann has contributed: if you read his book thoroughly, you see the harsh outlines of possible futures close around you."
  7. ↑ Johannes Kopp, Bernhard Schäfers: Basic concepts of sociology . Springer-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-16985-9 ( com.ph [accessed April 22, 2020]).
  8. ^ A b John Summers: The Deciders. In: New York Times. May 14, 2006, accessed February 14, 2014 .
  9. ^ Dennis Wrong: The Power Elite, by C. Wright Mills. In: Commentary Magazine. September 1956, accessed February 14, 2014 .
  10. ↑ Calvin Woodard: THE POWER ELITE, by C. Wright Mills. In: Louisiana Law Review. December 1956, accessed February 14, 2014 .
  11. ↑ Muhammed A. Asadi: The Military, Economy and the State: A New International System Analysis . Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2012 ( google.com [accessed April 25, 2020]).
  12. ↑ Who really rules the world. David Rothkopf observes the global "super class" and warns of abuse of power, BY MARCUS KLÖCKNER. September 17, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20091227180000/http://www.fr-online.de/in_und_ausland/kultur_und_medien/literatur/?em_cnt=1595206&em_loc=92