Notes on Mills: The Power Elite and Giddens: Elites and Power
Mills — The Power Elite
Core thesis: The power elite consists of individuals occupying pivotal positions in the major institutional hierarchies of modern society, whose decisions can affect the everyday lives of ordinary people. Their power is exercised not just through their own actions but through the institutions they control. Even when they do not act, their inaction can have decisive consequences.
Historical dynamic of the ruling class:
When a new source of wealth, new knowledge, a shift in religion, or new ideas emerge, broad social dislocations occur and the ruling class is reconstituted in response.
History is a continual conflict between the tendency to monopolize political power (and transmit it by inheritance) and the tendency for new forces to displace old ones; this produces ongoing endosmosis and exosmosis between the upper classes and some lower-class segments.
Ruling classes decline when they lose scope for the capacities that raised them to power, when they can no longer render necessary social services, or when their talents/services become less important in the social environment.
Historical analogies:
Roman aristocracy declined when they were no longer the exclusive source of higher army officers, administrators, and provincial governors.
Venetian aristocracy declined when nobles ceased to command galleys and to spend their lives in sea-borne trade and warfare.
In inorganic nature, air exhibits a tension between inertia (mobility) and heat distribution; similarly, societies experience cycles of closed, stationary ruling classes and renewed ruling classes.
The “big three” institutional centers of power:
The economy: dominated by two to three hundred giant corporations; these firms hold keys to economic decisions and exert interrelated administrative and political influence.
The political order: centralized executive establishment with power reaching into every corner of social life.
The military order: the largest, most expensive feature of government, with a public-relations veneer but a sprawling bureaucratic core.
These domains have enlarged, centralized, and interlocked over time; the means of power in each domain have increased, and their decisions increasingly affect the others (interlocking triangle of power).
Interlocking directorate and crisis moments:
The common interlocking of leadership occurs at moments of crisis—slump, war, and boom—when decisions in one sector resonate across the others.
A small cadre of decision-makers in each domain (warriors or war-lords, corporate chieftains, political directors) tends to come together, forming the power elite of America.
The composite nature of the power elite:
The elite are not solitary rulers; advisers, consultants, spokespeople, and opinion-makers accompany and influence the top figures.
Celebrities who live by display can distract public attention or influence those in power; they function as part of the immediate scene in which the elite’s drama unfolds.
The core drama occurs in the command posts of the major institutional hierarchies.
How individuals perceive power:
There are competing views about power: some suggest a cohesive elite; others argue that elites are so constrained by resistance and public relations that they are not decisive.
The author emphasizes that understanding power requires looking beyond personal self-perception to the structure of the major institutions that shape decisions.
People often misinterpret power as either omnipotent or entirely impotent; Mills cautions that power is neither absolute nor nonexistent and must be understood as a structured gradation of influence.
The elite as a class and its social dynamics:
The elite can be seen as a top social stratum, an interconnected set of overlapping crowds and cliques, who tend to socialize, marry, and operate within a relatively closed network.
American society lacks a feudal aristocracy; there is no inherited top nobility, yet there is a well-developed upper tier of wealth, prestige, and power that is reinforced by the major institutions.
The elite’s visibility and organizational form in America differ from European aristocracies; nonetheless, there are tiers and ranges of wealth and power largely unseen by those lower down.
The foundations of the American elite:
Emergence from a bourgeoisie that had opportunities unrivaled by nations with entrenched aristocracies.
The United States’ historical development (westward expansion, abundant resources, relative political stability, and opportunities for accumulation) enabled the bourgeoisie to accumulate wealth and prestige without an inherited aristocracy.
Historical processes (Revolutionary War, Jacksonian era, Civil War) dismantled traditional aristocratic privileges and allowed capitalist elites to rise to power.
The American ruling class did not owe its dominance to hereditary privilege; it centralized wealth, prestige, and political influence through capitalist expansion and institutional power.
Alternatives to elite theory and ideologies about power:
Some thinkers treat the elite as an essentially moral or character-based group, transcending others by virtue of being more noble or capable.
Mills notes that such judgments are ideological and may reflect biases about who deserves privilege; elites themselves may come to internalize and reproduce these views.
The elite’s cohesion and self-conception can be shaped by overlapping social circles and mutual dependence, which reinforces a sense of belonging and legitimacy.
The nature of power and legitimacy:
Power is not simply a possession of individuals but access to institutional positions that enable influence over wealth, prestige, and decision-making.
The elite’s power is anchored in their control of major institutions; without those positions, wealth, celebrity, and influence would be far less durable.
Definitions and scope of the power elite:
A preliminary definition: the political, economic, and military circles that form an intricate set of overlapping cliques sharing decisions with national consequences.
The line between elite and non-elite is somewhat arbitrary; one could broaden or narrow the line, but the important point is that the elite influence national decisions through interlocked institutions.
Time, fate, and the pace of history:
Historically, elites could be seen as shaping large-scale history; in modern times, the tempo of change is rapid, observable, and shaped by the decisions of a determinate circle.
Mills cautions against the idea that events alone shape history or that decisions are entirely predetermined by fate; responsibility lies with those who control the means of power.
The pace of technological and institutional consolidation has increased the power of those at the top and the consequences of their decisions.
Moments of decisive action and historical examples:
Examples of moments that illustrate elite decision-making: the dropping of atomic bombs over Japan; decisions about Korea; Quemoy and Matsu during the Dien Bien Phu era; strategic maneuvers leading to involvement in World War II.
These moments demonstrate how decisions by the elite can decisively steer history and how such moments crystallize the elite’s power.
On structure and variability of power:
Mills emphasizes that power is not a universal constant; the degree and form of power vary across epochs and nations.
A simplistic claim that elites always rule is inadequate; likewise, the claim that elites are entirely powerless is also misleading.
The important inquiry is to identify the level at which decisions of national consequence are made and who participates in those networks.
Notes and methodological cautions (footnotes in the text):
1: Burckhardt on great men; 2: interlocking of state, economy, and military; 3: Pareto’s and others’ indices and elite theory; 4: elite as top social stratum; 5: moral character conceptions of the elite; 6: critique of any universal dogma; 7: Löwith on meaning in history.
Summary takeaway:
The power elite are those who decide major national issues through overlapping leadership in the economy, state, and military.
Their power is exercised through institutional control and interdependence among the three domains, producing a structured gradient of influence rather than a simple, brute-force domination.
Giddens — Elites and Power (Introduction and Key Concepts)
Central question in elite theory: In capitalism (and in other class systems), the realm of politics is typically seen as subordinate to the economy. The specific form of this dependence, and how it is expressed in the domination of the ruling class, remains somewhat unclear in traditional Marxist theory.
Critique from elite theorists (Pareto, Mosca): They attempt to translate Marx’s class concept (relations of production) into a political differentiation between those who rule and those who are ruled. They argue that economic control translates into political domination, but they acknowledge that Marx did not specify the exact mechanisms of this translation.
Implication for socialism: If economic control directly yields political power, then the transition to socialism would imply a succession of ruling classes (elites) rather than a fundamental change in the underlying dynamics of domination.
The elite critique of Marxism: The argument that the political order is simply a reflection of economic relations tends to oversimplify how political power is exercised and how managerial or technocratic leadership emerges within capitalist societies.
The “managerial” or “technocratic” hypothesis (foreshadowed): The rise of managerial or technocratic elites as a distinct form of rule that organizes economic and political life beyond traditional capitalist owners or state bureaucrats.
The text signals a move to examine how modern elites rationalize and institutionalize power through governance practices, rather than assuming a uniform economic determinism.
(Note: The excerpt ends mid-sentence, indicating the discussion would continue to elaborate on the rise of managerial/technocratic rule and its implications for the understanding of elites and power.)