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In
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
and
sociological
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a
disproportionate amount of wealth,
privilege,
political power
In social science and politics, power is the social production of an effect that determines the capacities, actions, beliefs, or conduct of actors. Power does not exclusively refer to the threat or use of force ( coercion) by one actor agains ...
, or skill in a group. Defined by the ''
Cambridge Dictionary
The ''Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary'' (abbreviated ''CALD'') was first published in 1995 under the name ''Cambridge International Dictionary of English'', by the Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the ...
'', the "elite" are "those people or organizations that are considered the best or most powerful compared to others of a similar type."
American sociologist
C. Wright Mills
Charles Wright Mills (August 28, 1916 – March 20, 1962) was an American Sociology, sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills published widely in both popular and intellectual journ ...
states that members of the elite accept their fellows' position of importance in society. "As a rule, 'they accept one another, understand one another, marry one another, tend to work, and to think, if not together at least alike'."
It is a well-regulated existence where education plays a critical role.
Universities in the US
Youthful upper-class members attend prominent preparatory schools, which not only open doors to such elite universities as
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
,
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
,
Princeton
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...
, and the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
, but also to the universities' highly exclusive clubs. These memberships in turn pave the way to the prominent social clubs located in all major cities and serve as sites for important business contacts.
Elitist privilege
According to Mills, men receive the education necessary for
elitist
Elitism is the belief or notion that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people perceived as having an intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, power, notability, special skills, or experience—are more likely to be construc ...
privilege to obtain their background and contacts, allowing them to enter three branches of the power elite, which are;
*The Political Leadership: Mills contended that since the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, corporate leaders had become more prominent in the political process, with a decline in central decision-making for professional politicians.
*The Military Circle: In Mills' time a heightened concern about warfare existed, making top military leaders and such issues as defense funding and personnel recruitment very important. Most prominent corporate leaders and politicians were strong proponents of military spending.
*The Corporate Elite: According to Mills, in the 1950s when the military emphasis was pronounced, it was corporate leaders working with prominent military officers who dominated the development of policies. These two groups tended to be mutually supportive.
According to Mills, the governing elite in the United States primarily draws its members from political leaders, including the president, and a handful of key cabinet members, as well as close advisers, major corporate owners and directors, and high-ranking military officers.
These groups overlap and elites tend to circulate from one sector to another, consolidating power in the process.
Unlike the
ruling class
In sociology, the ruling class of a society is the social class who set and decide the political and economic agenda of society. In Marxist philosophy, the ruling class are the capitalist social class who own the means of production and by exten ...
, a social formation based on heritage and social ties, the power elite is characterized by the organizational structures through which its wealth is acquired. According to Mills, the power elite rose from "the managerial reorganization of the propertied classes into the more or less unified stratum of the corporate rich". Domhoff further clarified the differences in the two terms: "The upper class as a whole does not do the ruling. Instead, class rule is manifested through the activities of a wide variety of organizations and institutions...Leaders within the upper class join with high-level employees in the organizations they control to make up what will be called the power elite".
The
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
theoretician
Nikolai Bukharin anticipated the
elite theory
In political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the State that seeks to describe and explain power relationships in contemporary society. The theory posits that a small minority, consisting of members of the economic elite and poli ...
in his 1929 work, ''Imperialism and World Economy'': "present-day state power is nothing but an entrepreneurs' company of tremendous power, headed even by the same persons that occupy the leading positions in the banking and syndicate offices".
Power elite
The ''power elite'' is a term used by Mills to describe a relatively small, loosely connected group of individuals who dominate American policymaking. This group includes bureaucratic, corporate, intellectual, military,
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
, and government elites who control the principal institutions in the United States and whose opinions and actions influence the decisions of the policymakers. The basis for membership of a power elite is institutional power, namely an influential position within a prominent private or public organization.
A study of the French corporate elite has shown that social class continues to hold sway in determining who joins this elite group, with those from the upper-middle class tending to dominate. Another study (published in 2002) of power elites in the United States during the administration of President
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
(in office 2001-2009) identified 7,314 institutional positions of power encompassing 5,778 individuals. A later study of U.S. society noted demographic characteristics of this elite group as follows:
; Age : Corporate leaders aged about 60; heads of
foundations
Foundation may refer to:
* Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization
** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S.
** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...
, law, education, and civic organizations aged around 62; government employees aged about 56.
; Gender : Men contribute roughly 80% in the political realm whereas women contribute roughly only 20% in the political realm. In the economic denomination, , only 32 (6.4%) of the
Fortune 500 CEOs are women.
; Ethnicity : In the US,
White Anglo-Saxons dominate in the power elite. While
Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
represent about 80% of the top business leaders, about 54% of the members of Congress of any ethnicity are also Protestant. , only 4 (0.8%) of the Fortune 500 CEOs are
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
.
In similarly low proportions, , 10 (2%) of the Fortune 500 CEOs are
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
, and 10 (2%) are Asian.
; Education : Nearly all the leaders have a college education, with almost half graduating with advanced degrees. About 54% of the big-business leaders, and 42% of the government elite graduated from just 12 prestigious
universities
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
with large
endowments.
; Social clubs : Most holders of top positions in the power elite possess exclusive membership to one or more
social clubs
A social club may be a group of people or the place where they meet, generally formed around a common interest, occupation, or activity. Examples include: book discussion clubs, chess clubs, anime clubs, country clubs, charity work, criminal ...
. About a third belong to a small number of especially prestigious clubs in major cities like
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
,
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, and
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
Impacts on economy
In the 1970s an organized set of policies promoted reduced
tax
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...
es, especially for the wealthy, and a steady erosion of the welfare safety net. Starting with legislation in the 1980s, the wealthy banking community successfully lobbied for reduced regulation. The wide range of financial and social capital accessible to the power elite gives their members heavy influence in economic and political decision making, allowing them to move toward attaining desired outcomes. Sociologist Christopher Doob gives a hypothetical alternative, stating that these elite individuals would consider themselves the overseers of the national economy. Also appreciating that it is not only a moral, but a practical necessity to focus beyond their group interests. Doing so would hopefully alleviate various destructive conditions affecting large numbers of less affluent citizens.
Global politics and hegemony
Mills determined that there is an "inner core" of the power elite involving individuals that are able to move from one seat of institutional power to another. They, therefore, have a wide range of knowledge and interests in many influential organizations, and are, as Mills describes, "professional go-betweens of economic, political, and military affairs". Relentless expansion of
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
and the globalizing of economic and military power, binds leaders of the power elite into complex relationships with
nation states
A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group.
A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may in ...
that generate global-scale class divisions. Sociologist
Manuel Castells
Manuel Castells Oliván (; ; born 9 February 1942) is a Spanish sociologist. He is well known for his authorship of a trilogy of works, entitled The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. He is a scholar of the information society, co ...
writes in ''
The Rise of the Network Society'' that contemporary globalization does not mean that "everything in the global economy is global". So, a global economy becomes characterized by fundamental social inequalities with respect to the "level of integration, competitive potential and share of the benefits from economic growth".
Castells cites a kind of "double movement" where on one hand, "valuable segments of territories and people" become "linked in the global networks of value making and wealth appropriation", while, on the other, "everything and everyone" that is not valued by established networks gets "switched off...and ultimately discarded".
These evolutions have also led many social scientists to explore empirically the possible emergence of a new transnational and cohesive social class at the top of the social ladder: a global elite
But, the wide-ranging effects of
global capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
ultimately affect everyone on the planet, as economies around the world come to depend on the functioning of global financial markets, technologies, trade and labor.
See also
*
Alpha (ethology)
In biology, a dominance hierarchy (formerly and colloquially called a pecking order) is a type of social hierarchy that arises when members of animal social groups interact, creating a ranking system. A dominant higher-ranking individual is som ...
*
Boston Brahmin
The Boston Brahmins or Boston elite are members of Boston's traditional upper class. They are often associated with Harvard University; Anglicanism; and traditional Anglo-American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English coloni ...
*
Bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
*
Cabal
A cabal is a group of people who are united in some close design, usually to promote their private views or interests in an ideology, a state, or another community, often by intrigue and usually unbeknownst to those who are outside their group. Th ...
*
Conflict theories
Conflict theories are perspectives in sociology and social psychology that emphasize a materialist interpretation of history, dialectical method of analysis, a critical stance toward existing social arrangements, and political program of revolut ...
*
Elite theory
In political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the State that seeks to describe and explain power relationships in contemporary society. The theory posits that a small minority, consisting of members of the economic elite and poli ...
*
Elitism
Elitism is the belief or notion that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people perceived as having an intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, power, notability, special skills, or experience—are more likely to be constructi ...
*
The Establishment
''The Establishment'' is a term used to describe a dominant group or elite that controls a polity or an organization. It may comprise a closed social group that selects its own members, or entrenched elite structures in specific institution ...
*
International Debutante Ball
The International Debutante Ball is an invitation-only, formal debutante ball, to officially present well-connected young ladies of distinction from upper-class families to high society. Founded in 1954, it occurs every two years at the Waldo ...
*
Jet set
In journalism, jet set is a term for an international social group of wealthy people who travel the world to participate in social activities unavailable to ordinary people. The term, which replaced "café society", came from the lifestyle of tra ...
*
Liberal elite
Liberal elite, also referred to as the metropolitan elite or progressive elite, is a stereotype of politically liberal people whose education has traditionally opened the doors to affluence, wealth and power and who form a managerial elite. It is ...
*
Political class Political class, or political elite is a concept in comparative political science, originally developed by Italian political theorist Gaetano Mosca (1858–1941). It refers to the relatively small group of activists that is highly aware and active i ...
*
The powers that be (phrase)
*
Plutocracy
A plutocracy () or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any established ...
References
Further reading
*
*Heinrich Best, Ronald Gebauer & Axel Salheiser (Eds.)
''Political and Functional Elites in Post-Socialist Transformation: Central and East Europe since 1989/90'' Historical Social Research 37 (2), Special Issue, 2012.
*Cousin, Bruno & Sébastien Chauvin (2021)
"Is there a global super-bourgeoisie?"''Sociology Compass'' 15 (6): 1–15.
*Cousin, Bruno,
Shamus Khan
Shamus Rahman Khan (born October 8, 1978) is an American sociologist. He is a professor of sociology and American Studies at Princeton University. Formerly he served as chair of the sociology department at Columbia University. He writes on elites ...
&
Ashley Mears
Ashley Mears is an American writer, sociologist, and former fashion model. She is currently a professor of sociology at Boston University. Mears is the author of ''Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model'' and ''Very Important People: Statu ...
(2018)
"Theoretical and methodological pathways for research on elites"''
Socio-Economic Review
The ''Socio-Economic Review'' (SER) is a peer-reviewed academic journal, published quarterly by Oxford Journals for the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE). It is a journal dedicated to the analytical, political and moral quest ...
'' 16 (2): 225-249.
*
Jan Pakulski
Jan Pakulski (born in Łódź, Poland in 1950) is a Polish-born Australian sociologist.
He received a master's degree in sociology in 1973 at the University of Warsaw, from 1975 he has been living in Australia where he completed a PhD at the Aus ...
, Heinrich Best, Verona Christmas-Best & Ursula Hoffmann-Lange (Eds.)
''Elite Foundations of Social Theory and Politics'' Historical Social Research 37 (1), Special Issue, 2012.
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elite
Political concepts
Elite theory
Oligarchy
Social status
Majority–minority relations