Excerpt: Diversity in the Power Elite

Zweigenhaft, Richard, and William Domhoff. [1998] 2005. "Diversity in the Power Elite". Pp. 337-342 in Understanding Society, 2nd ed., edited by Margaret L. Andersen, Kim Logio, and Howard Taylor. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, Inc.

Since the massive influence of Horatio Alger's rags-to-riches stories in the 1870s, American culture has featured prominently the myth that anyone who wants something and works hard enough to get it will be successful.

Post-World War II, United States culture had entered a period that C. Wright Mills calls "the Great American Celebration", in which the ever-growing mass media celebrated the rise of the country out of the Great Depression, the social progress of FDR's New Deal, and the recent dedication to and victory in the Second World War. Claims of a classless society abounded, and especially with the GI Bill allowing millions of Americans to go to attend college and millions more to buy a house, claims of Horatio Alger-esque individuals rising up the social ladder became the norm. Mills challenged this cultural myth, pointing out that almost all the members of the power elite were white, Christian, wealthy, and male, and a majority came from "an even narrower stratum, the 11 percent of U.S. families headed by businesspeople or highly educated professionals like physicians and lawyers."

The authors question how far we've come as a society since Mills' initial findings. They examined how the membership of the power elite has shifted over the years, how many contemporary members were women or minorities, and whether the presence of women and minorities has changed the politics of the power elite.

What they found was unexpected, but not surprising: diversity in the power elite has increased, although the "core group" are still "wealthy white Christian males, most of whom are still from the upper third of the social ladder"; there are few rags-to-riches stories, and these are almost all through the electoral process; the "newcomers" to the power elite demonstrate that they hold the same "common values and a sense of hard-earned class privilege" as older members and don't want to upset the status quo; not all groups have had equal success in diversifying the power elite; those that have made it into the power elite serve "a buffer or liaison function" between their institutions and the "lesser" institutions; and "there is greater diversity in Congress than in the power elite".

They go on to say that much of the diversity is not cultural, but almost strictly by gender, ethnicity, or race:

Because the demand was strictly for a woman on the Supreme Court, Reagan could comply by choosing a conservative upper-class corporate lawyer, Sandra Day O'Connor. When pressure mounted to have more black justices, President Bush could respond by appointing Clarence Thomas, a conservative black Republican with a law degree from Yale University. It is yet another irony that appointments like these served to undercut the liberal social movements that caused them to happen.

Unfortunately, as the authors believe, "the concerns of social movements, political leaders, and the courts came to focus more and more on individual rights" and less on the equality of income and wealth. They conclude that in spite of increased diversity in the power elite, the American class structure remains as it has for over two hundred years.

This article confirms Mills' findings and elaborates on them, noting the (minimal) changes that social movements have wrought during the four decades afterward. It's an engaging piece of historical sociology that, while politically skewed, offers a refreshing take on the cultural myth of progress in the United States.

Relevance: 5/5 (very relevant)
Salience: 5/5 (very salient)

References:

• Horatio Alger, Jr. - as a cause. "Since the 1870s the refrain about the new diversity of the governing circles has"
  
• Huber, Richard M. 1971. The American Idea of Success. New York: McGraw Hill. - as an example.
• Scharnhorst, Gary. 1980. Horatio Alger, Jr. Boston: Twayne. - as an example.
• Mills, C. Wright. 1959. The Power Elite -cited in agreement (framework). "We address these and related questions within the framework provided by the iconoclastic sociologist C. Wright Mills in his hard-hitting classic The Power Elite..."
• C. Wright Mills - cited in disagreement (claims). "Unlike Mills, we think the power elite is more than a set of institutional leaders."
  
• Wolff, Edward N. 1996. Top Heavy -cited in agreement
• Wright, Stephen C., Donald M. Taylor, and Fathali M. Moghaddam. 1990. "Responding to Membership in a Disadvantaged Group: From Acceptance to Collective Protest." Journal of Personality and Social Change 58(6):994-1003. - as an example.
• Hare, Bruce R. 1995. "On the Desegregation of the Visible Elite; or, Beware of the Emperor's New Helpers: He or She May Look Like You or Me." Sociological Forum 10(4):673-678. - as an example.
• Rimer, Sara. 1996. "Fall of a Shirtmaking Legend Shakes Its Maine Hometown." New York Times, May 15.
• Norris, Floyd. 1996. "Market Place". New York Times, June 7. - as an example.
• Strom, Stephanie. 1996. "Double Trouble at Linda Wachner's Twin Companies." New York Times, August 4. - as an example.
• Luther, Claudia, and Steven Churm. 1988. "GOP Official Says He OK'd Observers at Polls." Los Angeles Times, November 12. - as an example.
• Perlman, Jeffrey. 1989. "Firm Will Pay $60,000 in Suit over Guards at Polls." Los Angeles Times, May 31. - as an example.