Power elites

             Society is composed of two kinds of individuals, according to Mills. First kind is the majority of the ordinary people who do not have the power to govern the driving forces of society. The second kind is the power elite who have the power to rule the political, economic and military establishments, and create historical changes. Mills states that the old means of power such that family, religion and education have left their place to politics, economics and military. Each of these domains has become very interrelated, centralized and enlarged with improving technology. Economy, politics and military are increasingly interlocking and giving rise to the power elite that makes primal decisions in the modern capitalist society. Power elite is not simply composed of the ones who own the most money, power and prestige but it is also through having access to these pivotal institutions people can have power. So, power is not positioned in individuals but in institutions. People in power elite form a social class that is defined as the inner circle of upper social classes with their interconnected relations. Upper strata in America is less visible than anywhere else because it has never passed through a feudal stage and never had an aristocrat class, so American elite emerged from a middle class with no aristocrat opposites. The elite in society are defined in humanist or moral criteria. According to humanists, people are elite because of their intrinsic characteristics. The moral conception mentions that the experiences and trainings of people make them elite. American elite are considered in two ways as being omnipotent or impotent. According to the view that elite is omnipotent, elite is the invisible agent of power. The opposite view that elite is impotent offers that elite is invisible because of its multitude characteristic and there is no coherency within elite. Within the nation two views are considered such that speaking about the pow...

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Power elites. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 21:40, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/4902.html