Table of Contents
Preface vi
Introduction x
1 Power and Class in America 1
What Is Power? 1
The Social Science View of Power 2
Three Power Indicators 4
What Is a Social Class? 8
Social Class According to Social Scientists 10
A Guide to What Follows 13
2 The Corporate Community 16
The Unexpected Origins of the Corporate Community 18
The Board of Directors 20
The Corporate Community 22
The Director Network as a Leadership Group 28
The Corporate Lawyers 29
From Small Farms to Agrifood Businesses 31
Small Business: Not a Counterweight 33
Local Businesses Form Growth Coalitions 36
Structural Power and Its Limits 39
3 The Corporate Community and the Upper Class 42
Is There an American Upper Class? 44
Prepping for Power 46
Social Clubs 50
The Feminine Half of the Upper Class 57
Dropouts, Failures, and Change Agents 59
Continuity and Upward Mobility 60
Is the Upper Class an Economic Class? 62
The Upper Class and Corporate Control 65
Where Do Corporate Executives Come From? 69
The Assimilation of Rising Corporate Executives 70
Class Awareness 72
4 The Policy-Planning Network 74
An Overview of the Policy-Planning Network 76
Corporate Interlocks with Think Tanks and Policy Groups 79
Foundations 81
Think Tanks 88
The Mixed Role of Universities in American Power Conflicts 91
The Policy-Discussion Groups 93
The Committee for Economic Development 98
The Liberal-Labor Policy Network 102
The Power Elite 104
The Policy-Planning Network in Perspective 106
5 The Role of Public Opinion 109
An Overview of the Opinion-Shaping Network 110
Striving to Shape Opinion on Foreign Policy 120
Trying to Shape Opinion on Economic Policies 122
The Power Elite and Social Issues 125
The Role of the Mass Media 126
Attempts to "Enforce" Public Opinion 129
When Public Opinion Can and Cannot Be Ignored 130
6 Parties and Elections 132
Electoral Rules as Containment Strategies 132
Electoral Constraints and Voter Suppression in America 133
How Growth Coalitions Changed Electoral Rules 135
How Elections Nonetheless Matter 136
Why Only Two Major Parties? 137
Republicans and Democrats 140
Party Primaries as Government Structures 145
The Big, Not Determinative, Role of Campaign Finance 146
The Obama Donor Network: A Case History 151
Other Corporate Support for Candidates 155
The Liberal-Labor Alliance in Electoral Politics 157
The Results of the Candidate Selection Process 158
But There's S till Uncertainty 161
7 How the Power Elite Dominate Government 162
The Role of Governments 163
The Special-Interest Process 164
The Policy-Making Process 168
Appointees to Government 174
The First Obama Administration 175
Supreme Court Appointments 177
The Liberal-Labor Alliance and Congress 181
Corporate Complaints of Impotence: Their Real Fears 186
The Limits of Corporate Domination 189
8 The Big Picture 192
Why are the Corporate Rich So Powerful? 194
The Transformation of the American Power Structure 197
Power and Social Change 202
9 What Do Other Social Scientists Think? 203
Pluralism 203
Historical Institutionalism 208
The Organizational State Perspective 212
Elite Theory 214
Finding Common Ground 218
References 221
Index 245
