C. W. Mills Power Elite

1007 Words5 Pages
The power elite according to Mills are those men that are in the high military, corporate rich executives, and the political elite. These three institutions are the ones that are making decisions and have the power to do so. Their decisions can affect both domestically and internationally. Those people in the elite have a lot more agency then those who are not in the power elite. Furthermore, those men that are in the power elite went to IVY league schools and were born and married into the upper class. They share many informal networks such as they go to the same golf games, charity balls and have an internal connections that maintain links of the three realms. There is a people and leaders that move back and forth in the three realms—for example a man that is in the military high ranking can move into politics to become a secretary of the state, and then become a CEO of a major corporation. The political order was once made up of dozens of states that were weak. But there has been a growth of the government and there is now a uniform set of powers that were previously scattered. The political order is more centralized. The political system is also able to enter every part of the social structure. An example is seen in the Nazi regime and Adolf Hitler who basically had Jews and other people killed simply because he did not agree or like them. He used his power in the government to cause the death of many millions of people. The economy used to be small business units and now there are hundreds of corporations that is politically interrelated. There is an automatic balance to that hold up the economic system and decisions. An example is Wal-mart and how fast it is spreading and making small businesses go out of business. The economic decisions are interrelated with the political systems. The military was once a mere state militia and now it is the biggest part of
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