GENDER, RACE AND CLASS 1209_SOC3320

Week 2: Power Elite

This week we will be looking at the most powerful of all the social classes. They are called the power elite, the social elite, or the 1%. Power is concentrated in this group and they have immense social cohesion. In sociology we define power as the ability to achieve desired outcomes.

The media does not affect the power elite, they remain veiled from the public eye and are not in the news, they own it or their friends so!

The power elite make up 3 realms:

corporate community

Government

Military

These 3 sectors interlock with each other. There is a revolving door with the highest placed individuals, so a high ranking governmental official becomes a CEO and they keep circulating through different jobs through the 3 realms!

Out of the 3 realms, it is the corporate community that holds the most power. This includes CEO's, president's of companies that control the MOP (or what Marx's referred to as the Means of Production.) They control the government and society, they own large amounts of land and real estate, they are developers and own huge construction companies. Developers can dominate and control municipals and local government.

If groups are not linked to the above 3 realms, they have little to no power. We learn from Domhoff that the most important decisions are made over informal interactions.