PDF Summary:The Power Elite, by C. Wright Mills

Have you ever felt powerless to impact politics? Like the major decisions are all being made by powerful people far away? You’re not alone—and things haven’t always been this way. In The Power Elite, American sociologist C. Wright Mills discusses how a small group of corporate, military, and political leaders has taken over a vast majority of American political and economic decision-making. This class of power elites are unaccountable to the people, can exercise their power broadly, and have exploited many American institutions for their own benefit.

Writing in 1956, Mills explores how the power elite came into existence after the American Civil War and how they solidified their power in the years after World War II. He also discusses who these elites are, how they operate, and what their rule means for the American people. Our guide to The Power Elite will cover his theories while also providing historical examples, dissenting opinions, and context for the era in which the book was written.

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2) Creating the Professional Officer Corps

The next step of American military centralization began at the turn of the 20th century, explains Mills. At this time, the US military started replacing decentralized militias with a professional officer corps. This system created very different kinds of officers: men who were highly educated in military beliefs and values, who often saw little to no combat and who were deliberately kept separate from civilian life. These officers were promoted not for winning battles or fighting well, but instead for following strict hierarchies and chains of command over the course of their careers.

During World War I, the United States vastly expanded the military as an emergency wartime measure—one that included close coordination among the civilian government, the military, and private industry. This was only temporary, however, and the government dismantled much of its military after the end of the conflict. This showed that while the military was increasingly centralized and hierarchical, it was still a tool of civilian government.

(Shortform note: Though Mills says Congress creating the professional officer corps at the turn of the 20th century was a turning point in military centralization, some scholars argue it was actually just the culmination of a century-long internal process. Following America’s poor performance in the War of 1812, many officers and bureaucrats coordinated to “professionalize” the military despite having little support from Congress. Professionalization meant standardizing and regulating military training and practices—which meant a central authority determined more of what the military did. From this perspective, Congress establishing a professional officer corps was less a sudden centralizing shift and more the formalization of an existing process.)

3) Going to War Indefinitely

The largest growth in military power and influence started a few decades later with World War II. Much like in World War I, the military, civilian government, and private industry worked together during World War II. However, US involvement in the war was much larger, meaning there was more money involved in the war economy and more integration necessary to coordinate the war effort. Most significantly, Mills argues that this collaboration didn’t end after World War II. Instead of dismantling the expanded military and returning to a peacetime economy, the United States entered the Cold War—a conflict with no clear end that allowed the country to maintain its expanded war economy and wartime integration indefinitely.

(Shortform note: Collaboration during World War II extended beyond just the elites—it also included leaders and members of labor unions. Formally, unions throughout the country agreed not to strike for the duration of the war; even the most militant left-wing unions refrained from striking out of solidarity with the Soviet Union’s war effort against the Nazis. “Wildcat” strikes—strikes against the wishes of union leadership—still occurred during the war, though never for long. When the war ended, so too did the no-strike pledge, leading to an enormous wave of strikes in 1945 and 1946. However, the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and purges of labor leaders greatly weakened American labor power, allowing elites to continue collaborating with far less organized opposition.)

Permanent wartime integration allows top generals to gain influence over corporations and politicians alike. Politicians can use the strict hierarchy and obedience of the military to efficiently accomplish their political goals and bypass the democratic political process, meaning they invest more money and power into the hands of the military. Then, generals use the inflated military budget to pour massive amounts of money into private corporations that do business with the military—becoming the largest customer of these companies and gaining a great deal of influence over them.

(Shortform note: While large-scale collaboration among corporations, politicians, and the military exists to this day, Mills’s claims about the influence of specific generals are far more specific to his time. In the 1950s, generals like Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower were beloved and popular figures for their roles in World War II. They leveraged this public support to try and gain power—MacArthur consistently challenged the authority of US president Harry S. Truman until Truman eventually fired him, a massively unpopular move. Eisenhower, on the other hand, won the 1952 presidential election in a landslide, and military spending spiked during his time in office.)

Institution #3: Civilian Government

After discussing the centralization of the American military, Mills then turns to “civilian government”: elected officials and appointed bureaucrats. He argues that federal bureaucratic agencies have slowly gained more and more power than elected officials—officials who are far more accountable to the American people—at every level. This process had three main steps: using party machinery, growing the bureaucracy, and appointing elites.

1) Using Party Machinery

Mills explains that before the 20th century, American politicians mainly worked within the political party “patronage” system: Over the course of their careers, they started in local party politics, met party mentors and allies, and received pay-offs and positions of power based on loyalty. This was also true for America’s “civil service,” or government bureaucrats hired for specific technical positions—everything from school superintendents to chiefs of police. These positions were “rewards” given out to loyal party members. This system was built on corruption and graft, with people often exercising political power for their own personal benefit and giving positions to people they trusted.

(Shortform note: While the era of large patronage networks and political ‘machines’ is generally believed to have ended in the early 20th century, versions of it continued to operate up to and even after The Power Elite was written—especially in the Democratic Party and in the South. Political machines controlled or influenced politics on a local and state level well into the 20th century, like through Augusta Georgia’s “Cracker Party” or Huey Long’s control of Louisiana politics. Political machines even impacted federal politics—Richard J. Daley’s Cook County Democratic Party allegedly miscounted votes in the 1960 presidential election to favor Democrat John F. Kennedy, though this is still debated today.)

2) Growing the Bureaucracy

In the early 20th century, presidents like Theodore Roosevelt and especially Franklin Delano Roosevelt expanded the civil service and dismantled much of the patronage system of the past, explains Mills. This contributed to the centralization of power in two distinct ways:

1) The expansion of the civil service invested more power in federal non-elected positions. New federal agencies within the executive branch had power over major aspects of American life. Since these positions were appointed, those filling them were only accountable to those in power and not the public at large. For example, monetary policy (how much money to print) was a major subject of debate in early American politics among voters and elected officials. However, in 1913, the government established the Federal Reserve—a civil service agency staffed by appointed officials that controlled the country’s monetary policy directly.

(Shortform note: To contextualize Mills’s concerns with the growing power of bureaucrats, we can look to one of his major influences: German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920). Weber believed overgrown bureaucracy to be the main threat to democratic and free society. According to Weber, a more complex state requires more technically skilled people to manage it—meaning the more complicated a state becomes, the more power skilled bureaucrats gain. This is because they not only have more to manage, but also because they are the only ones who know how to manage the state. From this perspective, we can see why Mills fears the growth of the bureaucratic state might make the country less democratic.)

2) Reforming the patronage system took wealth and power away from low-level party members. The patronage system made elites provide lower-level officials with jobs in exchange for their loyalty. While this was blatant corruption and graft, it also allowed for some degree of upward mobility and elite accountability—if elites ever stopped providing benefits and opportunities to those beneath them, then they would lose the support of their base.

Reforms of this era cracked down on bribery and graft, but they crucially still allowed elites to control government positions. This meant that while lower-level politicians still kept or lost their jobs based on loyalty to elites, they weren’t able to hold elites accountable in return by demanding upward mobility and wealth. Mills therefore claims that despite these reforms, America still doesn’t have a merit-based and apolitical civil service since politicians can create or destroy civil service jobs at will.

(Shortform note: In the years since Mills wrote The Power Elite, further changes to bureaucracy—specifically the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which remains largely unchanged to this day—have given federal employees additional job protections. Some critics even argue that under current standards, it’s too difficult to fire underperforming federal employees. They use the analogy of government as a business to explain their argument: Low-level civil servants and bureaucrats need to be accountable to higher-ups just like low-level employees need to be accountable to their bosses. This helps ensure efficiency and productivity.)

3) Appointing Elites

Mills argues that the larger, stronger bureaucratic agencies in the executive branch allow elites to consolidate their power further. He believes these agencies allow elites inside and outside the government to control major American political decisions—things like war and peace, the shape of the economy, and how power is distributed. What the average American sees as politics (elections, Congress, and so on) is actually just a mid-level, intermediary process for determining how to carry out the will of these elite few.

For example, Mills notes that modern American liberals and conservatives have the same overall goal in economic policy: private ownership of large corporations that determine major aspects of American life. The difference is in their approach: Liberals believe safety nets and increased public spending (though less profitable in the short term) maintain the long-term stability of the corporate economic system. Conservatives, however, believe in maximizing short-term corporate profit by cutting taxes and government spending.

Top bureaucratic positions (secretary of defense, secretary of state, head of the CIA, and so on) are often given to corporate and military elites, rather than career politicians or bureaucrats—allowing for further integration and centralization of the American power elite. For example, President Eisenhower’s initial cabinet was jokingly referred to as “nine millionaires and a plumber” because it consisted of nine corporate executives and the president of a pipefitter union.

Bureaucratic Behemoths

To contextualize Mills’s grave concerns about elite bureaucracy, we can look to one of The Power Elite’s major influences: Franz Leopold Neumann’s Behemoth, a 1942 book outlining the internal structure and workings of Nazi Germany. Neumann defined the Nazi state as a chaotic blend of private monopolies and government institutions operating with little to no oversight.

According to Neumann, this mess of private and public institutions had two main things in common: First, they were ultimately all accountable only to those at the top—Hitler and his closest allies. Second, they collectively controlled every aspect of life in Nazi Germany. Neumann’s analysis of the Nazi state helps inform why Mills is so alarmed at what he views as an unaccountable blend of the military, large corporations and government bureaucracy in the United States.

Part 3: The American People and Power

After discussing how the elite has consolidated power in America, Mills then explores how the American people have lost power. He argues that due to changes in media and political organization, many Americans feel powerless to influence their political circumstances—a situation that has contributed to a broad national sense of unease and loss of control. Mills suggests that this sense of unease can eventually lead to large-scale political violence.

In Part 3 of our guide, we’ll explore how the American people have traditionally exercised political power and how they’ve lost this power over time. In particular, we’ll look at the three main institutions that define the relationship between the American people and their political circumstances:

1. The media
2. Political organizations
3. Intellectuals

Institution #1: The Media

Mills argues that the growing centralization of the media has taken power and influence away from the American people. This centralization first occurred when new technologies like radio and television made it easier for a few people to reach many, while lax regulation allowed a few major corporations to dominate the media industry.

Mills believes that media centralization has taken power away from the American people for two main reasons:

1) Fewer Opinions

Centralization of media has reduced the number of opinions and viewpoints available to the public. Mills suggests there used to be many different opinions, viewpoints, and political narratives offered by various smaller media outlets. However, media centralization has slowly destroyed these smaller sources, meaning fewer and fewer corporations control more and more aspects of public opinion. Mills doesn’t believe that all major news sources agree on everything, but he does believe that none of them question or challenge the power of the elite.

2) Less Discussion

Average people are unable to respond to or challenge mass media in meaningful ways. Previously, if an individual wanted to challenge a media opinion, they could either contact the media source directly, present their opposing opinion in a different media outlet, or discuss their opinion with members of their community. However, the centralization of media makes this all unlikely or even impossible—individuals don’t have platforms to express these opinions in a way that others will notice, and they can’t act on their opinions in any significant way (as we discuss in the next section).

The Internet and Centralization

Has the development of the internet over the past 30 years counteracted the media centralization Mills discusses, or has it just been another example of it? Let’s look at arguments on both sides, addressing Mills’s concerns about the impact of media centralization:

The internet is decentralized: Political commentators often contrast the internet with television to show its decentralized nature and democratizing effect. While television is a one-way medium controlled in large part by a few major networks, the internet allows everyone to communicate with each other and establish their own websites and communities. This addresses both of Mills’s major concerns, allowing everyone to express their opinions, discuss political issues with one another, or even plan activist movements and protests.

The internet is centralized: Skeptics or outright critics of internet decentralization view it as a medium that has rapidly become just as centralized as others. They note that voices on the internet don’t carry even remotely equal weight, with a few select websites or users receiving far more attention than others. This means that while everyone can have a voice or discuss an issue, they may not be heard or have any impact. And critics point out that much like television networks before, a major portion of internet use is attributable to a few major companies, such as Netflix and Facebook.

Institution #2: Political Organizations

In addition to the media, Mills argues that American political organizations have also centralized over time, taking power and influence away from the people. Traditionally, an average American could influence local community politics, which then could organize with other communities to influence state and federal politics. For example, John joins a union, then can influence it through regular meetings and elections. Then, his union works with other unions to form a broad political base, with money and votes to influence government policy and elections.

Mills explains that as the government centralized, these political organizations centralized as well. This is for two main reasons:

1. Smaller political organizations are less effective at influencing large, centralized government bureaucracy—since they have less power and money, they’re sidelined in favor of those who do.
2. As electoral politics became less accountable to the people (as previously discussed), those wanting to be heard flocked to political organizations, causing them to grow in size.

He suggests that this led to a shift in the structure of organizations: Instead of many autonomous communities coming together to create an organization, a select group of executives and bureaucrats now control massive national volunteer organizations. Members of these groups are as disconnected from real power as they are in politics—they’re single members out of millions.

(Shortform note: To better understand Mills’s points, let’s take a look at the structure of nonprofit political organizations. Much like corporations, nonprofit political organizations are led by a board of directors that votes on leadership positions like president or CEO. Unlike corporations, however, nonprofits don’t choose their board of directors from shareholders. Instead, whoever starts the nonprofit can decide how to choose directors on their own. This means in a large nonprofit, decisions about leadership are generally made only by those at the highest level.)

Institution #3: The Intellectual Class

Mills argues that traditionally, intellectuals in America served to challenge or explain political dynamics to the American people. This helped Americans understand what was going on in their society, how it affected their lives, and what they could do about it. However, Mills claims that this is no longer the case. He suggests that the majority of American intellectuals fail to acknowledge, question, or challenge the rule of the power elite. This has also taken power away from the American people by depriving them of their ability to understand what’s going on in government, why it’s going on, and how it affects them.

(Shortform note: Mills critiques the intellectual class more directly in his later work, The Sociological Imagination. In it, he claims a new generation of economists, sociologists, and so on have taken to gathering technical information—opinion poll data, market research, and other quantifiable metrics—without developing a broader historical and social understanding of what they study. Without taking a wider view of social and political trends, Mills says, social scientists can’t help average Americans understand their life circumstances. They might even work on behalf of elites, remaining ignorant or willfully ignorant of what their research is used for.)

Mills explains that some intellectuals simply deny the existence of the power elite or say elites are disorganized and accountable to the American people. Other intellectuals don’t deny the existence of the power elite but instead ignore or downplay their role, avoiding critiques of broader power structures. According to Mills, both post-war conservatives and post-war liberals fail to acknowledge the power elite.

1) Conservatives

Mills explains that in post-war America, the rule of the power elite has left many middle-class Americans perceiving a loss in status or influence. Instead of recognizing the power elite as the true cause of this, though, conservative politicians and intellectuals focus these middle-class frustrations into attacks on specific individuals, institutions, and symbols of status within government. To this end, they ignore government norms and conventions, publicly and privately persecute their enemies, and seek power for themselves and their allies by any means necessary.

The most obvious example of this sort of behavior at the time is a campaign of unfounded personal attacks and accusations led by Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. McCarthy made a number of very public accusations, often claiming other members of government were communists or homosexuals with little to no evidence. This behavior fits Mills’s definition above: It channeled broader social frustrations onto specific individuals, defied congressional conventions, and was done in part for fame and power.

The Petite Bourgeoisie and Right-Wing Movements

Mills actually defines the conservative voter base more precisely than simply middle-class. He identifies them as the petite bourgeoisie, a Marxist term referring to the social class between large-scale capitalists and wage workers. This class includes people like small business owners, self-employed tradespeople, and others of middling wealth who can operate semi-independent of large capital. According to Marxism, the petite bourgeoisie are in a precarious position—capitalism allows them to maintain the wealth they have, but also leads to the concentration of wealth that will eventually force them into the lower class.

A lot of Marxist and socialist scholarship (some of which Mills cites) claims that when the position of the petite bourgeoisie is particularly threatened, they often adopt far-right ideologies. This allows them to channel the frustrations of their precarious position at specific elites, minority groups, or segments of society without having to admit that the capitalist system as a whole—the system they associate with their wealth—is the real reason why their social position is threatened.

2) Liberals

Mills suggests that instead of acknowledging or challenging the rule of the power elite, post-war American liberals are attempting to mount a disorganized defense of the status quo. This is because liberals held power for decades before World War II, leading to two main consequences:

1. Liberal grassroots organization has greatly diminished because in the years before the war, it wasn’t necessary for liberals to stay in power.
2. The New Deal made a significant portion of liberal political projects into federal law, meaning many post-war liberals just want to keep things the way they are.

Finally, Mills claims that as an ideology, liberalism in post-war America has essentially become meaningless. Liberal ideals—a government of the people, limits on government power, freedom of political expression, and so on—are frequently used in the rhetoric of both liberals and conservatives to justify vastly different policies. In the meantime, neither group actually tries to fight for these ideals. The power elite has worked to take power away from average Americans, bypass limits on government power, and monopolize political discussion—and liberals and conservatives alike haven’t tried to stop them.

A New Liberalism?

In the decades since The Power Elite was written, liberalism and liberals have seen a significant ideological shift. Starting in the 1970s, many liberals trended away from large-scale government social programs like the New Deal and the Great Society, instead trending toward neoliberalism. Neoliberals embrace a lot of classic liberalism’s emphasis on free market economics and the limited role of the government in economic affairs.

As such, neoliberal politicians like Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton focused on corporate deregulation and encouraging free trade. These politicians and their supporters view neoliberalism as a way of escaping the stagnant New Deal “status quo,” like what Mills discusses. Critics of neoliberalism, on the other hand, view it as a further “hollowing out” of liberalism by the elite.