The "Power Elite": Two Views

...Since these positions number in the thousands and the salaries are unattractive, they cannot be recruited from the upper classes that staff the power elite...

...Con flict between hi9 convictions or values on the one hand, and his theory (with its implicit values) on the other hand, renders his interpretation ambiguous and inconclusive...

...Thus, the ideology of consumption in the United States has all but eliminated an awareness of class antagonisms...

...In my opinion, Mills accomplishes the first task but falls short of the others...

...In traditional elite theory, history is inseparable from the notion that human nature remains fairly constant throughout, that men are always equipped with an irrational yen for power, that society moves cyclically in perpetual struggle between "ins" and "outs," and that there is an immutable division between rulers and ruled...

...In our time, Mills argues, status means control of the institutions of celebrity, economic power means control of the forces of production, and political power means control of the executive branch of the national government...

...ONCE MORE, what is needed is a theory that will recognize the social processes behind the power elite, the mentality which binds it together, and, above all, the direction of its movement...

...A rREQUENT source of incoherence in political thought, as D. D. Cooperman has observed, is the confusion of three distinct realities—power, force, and violence...

...Mills is correct in observing that control of the executive-administrative apparatus is now the highest degree of state power...

...It is important to know whether the solidarity of his power triumvirate is a temporary convergence or whether it is becoming a permanent Establishment...

...Concentrating on its internal structure, we are apt to forget that it is affected in turn by the consequences of its impact on the world...

...projecting its course, the alternatives seem to be economic dislocation or war...

...It inclines the empirical observer to believe that contemporary trends will endure forever and that whoever has the upper hand at the moment of observation is invincible...

...Therefore, the strategy of the liberal elite calls for a palace revolution (bloodless and lawful) in which the children of light will conquer the forces of darkness, followed by an era of pro gressive reform, in which existing institutions will be run by efficient social engineers with a minimum of friction and waste...

...Behind its method of investigation lies the assumption that the techniques of empirical sociological investigation are ideologically neutral and may be employed in the service of whatever "values" the investigator happens to hold...

...Acquiescence of the ruled to this version of man and the world creates an apparent union of interest between ruler and ruled, obscuring the real differences in their positions...

...Each age has its dominant institutions, the elite theory assumes, and power means the control of these institutions...

...For obvious reasons, power in the modern state requires control of the government, and such control is not possible without acquiescence of the party system...

...the knowledge that freedom is found in history...

...hence there must be an ideological identification between them and the political directorate...

...The most hostile readers, however, admit that they have learned something from the book, and in some of the public discussion it provokes, there is evidence of an inclination toward genuine searching and debate...

...It is important to know where the power system is going...

...As Orwell put the question to Burnham...

...I am not denying that the powerful can bend particular laws to suit their purposes or that the law often conceals the true locus of power, but legality itself is a web that catches the predator as well as the prey...

...To answer that power and domination are based on an instinct—a libido dominandi— is to take refuge behind an ancient tautology and to tell us nothing...

...For radical criticism to have any meaning it must utter its judgments from some moral norm that transcends the system, or from some standard that recognizes an immanent, unfulfilled potential in the existing state of things...

...The ruling class is impelled to impress on the world its own image...

...For a space, Mills does engage in class analysis, but insists on holding fast to the elite concept, not from semantic confusion, but from the demands of theory...

...The latter, of course, besides maintaining a predictable order to permit economic life, performs as well an indispensable ethical function...

...As George Orwell has observed, in this view: humanity is divided into twoclasses: the self-seeking, hypocritical minority, and the brainless mobwhose destiny is always to be led or driven, as one gets a pig backto the sty by kicking it on the bottom or by rattling a stick insidea swill bucket, according to theneeds of the moment...

...The fact that policy is made by upperclass elites who are constitutionally unable to understand the revolutionary elites of new nations is a source of international conflict which will affect reciprocally the internal balance of power...

...It is my contention, however, that elite theory does more than describe and explain objective phenomena of power...

...Still, even the one task accomplish ed raises Power Elite to the rank of an important book...

...But first it is important to see that, despite the seductive appeal of its grimness, it is an unrealistic notion...

...When the liberals are "out," the masses are inert, kept in subjection by force and propaganda, for the benefit of selfish interests...

...This social process, functioning as an intrinsic limitation on power, Hegel recognized as the "trick of reason" which forces unwilling interests to become universalized...

...Thus Mills moves in the tradition of Machiavelli, Pareto, Mosca, Michels and James Burnham, equipped, however, with the theoretical baggage of academic sociology...

...In the case of an economic chaos produced by technological unemploy...

...After the seizure of power, the elite theory justifies transforming the vanguard of the revolution into the old guard of the new regime...

...To make the leap from class to elite he is forced to the springboard of exaggeration, and from his account, the success of exclusive schools in shaping the upper-class soul exceeds the most hyperbolic claims of their own cata logues...

...Moreover, the demonstration of cultural homogeneity is inconclusive, for it can be argued that there is greater homogeneity of education and ideals in the middle social levels, which are "stalemated" and impotent, than in the upper classes, which generate the power elite...

...In the elite theory, political tutelage is the liberal counterpart of conservative quietism...

...The necessity of persuasion is an intrinsic limitation on the exercise of power, for groups seeking to rule must express their particular interests in universal terms, that is, as ideologies...

...The elite theory permits an ideological range from conservatism to liberalism but is incompatible with any thoroughgoing radical position...

...Thus he devotes considerable space to examine the care and feeding of the upper classes and discovers that the old school tie is the most powerful agent in upperclass solidarity...

...A. A. Berle and other liberals, in reviewing Power Elite, have pointed out that in the context of his system of analysis there are no grounds from which Mills can logically hurl the charge of moral "irresponsibility" against the power elite...

...ment or by the collapse of the permanent war economy, the stability of the triumvirate promises to be upset by the domination of one component...

...ALTHOUGH Power Elite offers an interesting description of the power system, the internal conflict of the book's premises and its failure to come to grips with important problems of power renders it ambiguous and indecisive as an interpretation...

...Mere Realpolitik, which makes a fetish of power, confusing power with force and violence, regarding any other interpretation as sentimental and extravagant, is actually a position as credulous as it is stark...

...Its very presuppositions contain a latent ideological bias, and the theoretical defects in Mills's book spring from the collision between this hidden bias and his own radical convictions...

...I am not arguing for an equilibrium theory of power according to which power is more or less equitably dis tributed in America among a num ber of balanced pressure groups...

...Every policy chief knows that he can get nowhere with an unfriendly bureaucracy...

...It does so not cynically but with a sense of mission—with the desire to convert society to its view of "reality...

...But Mills's elite theory only dimly perceives these realities of pow er for they are buried in the system and only partially reflected in the ac tions of the powerful...

...To explain the political unity of the power triumvirate centered in the government, the military and industry, he finds one "cause" in the cultural homogeneity of the top layers of society...

...and a frame of mind that acknowledges the remarkable plasticity of human institutions...

...To cluck one's tongue over tax swindles, expense ac counts, airplane rides, and the voca tional versatility of generals is to be so dazzled by the obvious as to miss the significant...

...Likewise, his moral judgment of the power system is ineffectual— for while his indignation is genuine enough and the power elite is guilty as charged, his denunciation of its "irresponsibility" has no ground in the context of his theory...

...Mills protests that the noisy strife of parties and pressure groups has been displaced to the middle levels of power, and he is right, but unless these organizations are "convinced," they will not remain content in the middle but instead seek opportunity to act as revolutionary or reactionary parties...

...The apologists for the power system will say that concentration of power is a necessary evil justified by the "success" of the welfare state, We never had it so good, they sing, and Berle asks the old army question: If we're so fouled up, how come we're still here...

...Asking why men want power is an old question, but it must be asked in new form...

...Hence, key men in the power system are not only the soldier or the policeman but the lawyer, whose expert knowledge of illegality as well as of the law is indispensable for getting safely through the maze...

...It sought out the economic basis of the entire circle from which the rulers were drawn and examined the process which transformed their interests and imagination into (Pascal's phrase) the cords which bound the state...

...All politics is a struggle for power...

...a sanguine attitude toward fundamental social change...

...e.g., the inertia of the bureaucratic fly-wheel and the universality of law...

...The halcyon prosperity of the garrison economy cannot last forever...

...It is true that there are elite theories which have begun in a radical spirit, but the combination does not survive success—witness the similar theoretical metamorphoses of any number of successful revolutionists as diverse as Lenin and Chiang...

...Elitism is incompatible with the character of radical humanism—the conviction that man makes himself...

...Otherwise, radicalism becomes a sour grapes posture—a power lust bewailing its impotence —and the radical stands alone, not as a pariah but merely as a wallflower...

...In Power Elite one may discern three tasks: (1) to describe the locus of power and its organization in American society, (2) to interpret this power configuration, explain its causes and the direction of its movement, (3) to pass judgment on it...

...This conception of power is the weakest point in Mills's argument and, as I will try to show, makes a number of assumptions about the nature of society and history that are inconsistent with any form of genuine radicalism...

...The magnitude of the 1953 "changeover" in the civil service indicates the importance that the Republican directorate attached to the ideology of their bureaucrats...

...The added members who bind themselves to the party through allegiance to its idea can insist on party "integrity" and consistency with the official ideology, thus delivering the party over to the logic of the idea, even, sometimes, at the expense of the original interests...

...If space permitted, it would be possible to discuss other intrinsic limitations...

...Impressed into service, the Controversial Book has almost lost its right to be read as a source of illumination, and the writer struggles in vain for the dignity of true attention...

...To say that anything may be done if the elite wills it, is to ignore the fact that certain rules of conduct must be observed if society is to hold together at all...

...The ruling class has not isolated itself as a consuming and enjoying class but has converted the rest of society and remade it in its image, propagating the maxim, "Everyman a Consumer...

...To co BEYOND the defects of the elite theory we must be prepared to ask old and new questions...

...Even here, however, the same intrinsic limitations operate...

...Moreover, persuasion and not coercion is the clue to power, and violence is not the apotheosis of power but the failure of power...

...It is important to know what conditions will set the now convergent interests of the triumvirate against one another, for, since Aristotle, social theorists have been aware that in an oligarchy the source of revolt is dissension in the ruling class...

...Reviewers from Center and Right have fulminated against it, of course, for Mills is not content to criticize (liberals find it safe enough to do that) but, in the radical tradition, has the high temerity to accuse...

...The elite theory is a poor substitute for the old theory of a ruling class which went much further than mere description of the external phenomena of power...

...In any given society, power is defined by its limits—intrinsic and extrinsic—in other words, by the system in which it is constrained...

...POWER is expressed in legal norms which are stated in universal categories applying to the rulers as well as the ruled...

...Why does the lust for naked power become a major human motive exactly now, when the dominion of man over man is ceasing to be necessary...

...Unless the liberal elite lives up to its responsibility of leadership, the argument goes, bad or misguided men will run things by default...

...Thus the concept of power is reduced to a realpolitische notion—a "conquest" theory of politics...

...The old army answer, Berle neglects to mention, is that the enemy is more fouled up than we are...

...Nevertheless, seizure of power is still the key...

...The effect is important in itself, for in our day the recognition that ideas are weapons has all but eclipsed the knowledge that ideas are also ideas, and the gadfly, virtually losing his Socratic function, is now engaged solely as a partisan—a force to repel or annex...

...It is hard to tell a man that his style of architecture is splendid, but that the foundation is laid on sand...

...The military and the police derive their importance "from the simple fact that violence is the final support of power and the final resort of those who would contest it...

...As the reviewer in the London Times Literary Supplement observes, it might have been more accurate to name it a privileged class rather than a ruling class since nobody claimed that all the members actually took part in the business of ruling...

...The trouble with the elite theory is that it blinds one to the real potential for fundamental social change inherent in every historic situation...

...C. Wright Mills has given us an important book, but a disconcerting one...

...These are no mean tasks, and to accomplish any one of them is to write an important book...

...As the late Franz Neumann put it, "Failure to evoke emotional or intellectual responses in the ruled compels the ruler to resort to simple violence, ultimately to liquidation...

...the ultimate kind of power is violence," Mills claims...

...Elite theory cannot take us very far in discerning the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of power, or even raise the important questions...

...Rivalry of parties in a constitutional democracy forces sel fish interests to provide themselves with an ideology and actively to seek mass support, for unless they gain adherents recruited from circles beyond the original nucleus, they can come nowhere near gaining a majority...

...As long as men think of themselves as producers, the difference between workers and employers is all too clear, but their identity as consumers conceals this difference...

...Radical changes in the class structure may have made the old theory of a ruling class obsolete, but the elite theory offers no improvement in its place...

...With its cyclical view of history and its focus on the forces of stability, the elite theory is usually wedded to a conservative ideology, yet its ideological range does not exclude liberalism...

...Now that the machine has eliminated the mechanical reasons for drudgery and subjection and consequently the archaic grounds for class divisions based on them, why do class lines persist...

...The snapshot view that Mills gives us omits a great deal...

...The people occupying key positions and even middle-level positions must be "persuaded" or else their resistance is a formidable obstacle to the exercise of power...

...I be lieve with Mills that it is an an achronistic and fatuous notion serv ing only to obscure the realities of power...