The Power Elite: A Brief Overview

Published in 1956, C. Wright Mills’ book, The Power Elite, remains a strikingly relevant commentary concerning the marginalization of the individual by a centralized power structure. Mills delineates the nature of the abovementioned centralized power structure and illustrates the ability of its momentum to marginalize the individual identities of both ordinary men and men of decision.  Mills describes the centralized power structure as a triumvirate of institutional units that includes the economy, the military order, and the political order. Mills suggests that, as each institutional unit independently becomes progressively larger and more centralized the more they interact with one another, and, as a consequence of this increased interaction, become more relevant in each other’s institutional realities. In an effort to illustrate this system, Mills states that, “There is no longer, on the one hand, an economy, and, on the other hand, a political order containing a military establishment, unimportant to politics and to money-making. There is a political economy linked, in a thousand ways, with military institutions and decisions.”

Mills goes on to further elaboration as to the mechanisms by which these three institutional units exert their will. He posits that power, wealth, and prestige play very different, but interactive roles in the structuring of the positions of authority held by the said institutional units. Mills suggests that these three mechanisms are cumulative in nature; that is, “the more of it you have, the more you can get.” He further explains that not only are they cumulative, they may individually be utilized as currency by which another of the mechanisms may be purchased. In other words, “the wealthy find it easier than the poor to gain power; those with status find it easier than those without it to control opportunities for wealth.” He notes that access to these mechanisms is primarily dependent on access to major institutions. Mills is careful to explain that men of decision are engendered by (1) access to major institutions and (2) the accumulation of prestige, power, and wealth through interaction within the said major institutions.

It is interesting to me that Mills seems to suggest that the system of the power elite (i.e. the military-industrial complex’s supremacy over all aspects of the daily lives of the pedestrian citizenry), not only claims supreme ascendancy over the lay public, but also over the habitus of the top social stratum. I feel very encouraged that Mills claims that there is a split between what is “Human” and what is the “Machine.” In other words, it is a great relief to me that someone as learned as C. Wright Mills has demarcated the boundary between what it means to be an individual living as an individual and what it means to be an individual living as part of an entity encumbered by the external pressures of social engines. I often find myself wondering what it means to be a person whose life must at some point interact and, in some cases, fuse with those of “the other.” It is as though the essence of an individual seems to gain an alternative and added meaning simply though interaction with another. It would seem that Mills suggests that although the triumvirate of institutional units that make up the driving and dominant force of our social lives is the end result of a process of social creation of reality, it is presently antagonistic to the very idea of collective interpretations of individuals’ conception of reality. I feel that this logically follows from Mills’ discussion about the myth of a free market—it might have existed at one time during the infancy of our society, but no longer. I have often experienced anxiety because of the idea of gaining auxiliary meaning through interaction with others. Much to the chagrin of people in my immediate social circle, I have expressed interest in living a life of the utmost seclusion. I suppose I am anxious about losing the meaning of my identity through participation in a process of collective meaning making that ultimately results in a system that is devoid of fealty to its contributing parts. Certainly there exists a rhetoric that suggests that being part of something bigger and more important than one’s self is a noble pursuit, however, I do not currently feel that sacrificing my personal identity for the sole purpose of contributing to the mindless momentum of a system is at all noble or prudent.

Critical Pedagogy

Support of social reconstructivism as a practical educational paradigm often engenders the reification of Critical Theory as Critical Pedagogy. With regard to Critical Pedagogy, McLaren (2009) suggests that knowledge is organic and subjective; that is, he believes that knowledge is the product of an ongoing conversation between members of a given society at a given time. McLaren further asserts that “[c]ritical pedagogy asks how and why knowledge gets constructed the way it does, and how and why some constructions of reality are legitimated and celebrated by the dominant culture while others clearly are not” (p. 63).

McLaren delves deeper into the subgroups of knowledge and suggests that emancipatory knowledge is often utilized by critical educators to bring to parity quantifiable knowledge and analytical knowledge and, in so doing, create “the foundation for social justice, equality, and empowerment” (p. 64).

McLaren goes on to point out that Critical Pedagogy is a tool by which educators self-critically analyze modes of thought generation and dominant discourse in an effort to expose power asymmetries and their manifestation in school curricula with particular regard to notions of cultural capital. He suggests that “[s]tudents from the dominant culture inherit substantially different cultural capital than do economically disadvantaged students, and schools generally value and reward those who exhibit that dominant cultural capital” (p. 81). He further explains that students who subscribe to the subordinate class culture often find that the cultural capital that they inherit from such an oppressed culture holds very little value as a social currency within schools that systematically devalue that said cultural capital. As such, in McLaren’s view:

Cultural capital is reflective of material capital and replaces it as a form of symbolic currency that enters into the exchange system of the school. Cultural capital is therefore symbolic of the social structure’s economic force and becomes in itself a productive force in the reproduction of social relations under capitalism. Academic performance represents, therefore, not individual competence or the lack of ability on the part of disadvantaged students but the school’s depreciation of their cultural capital. The end result is that the school’s academic credentials remain indissolubly linked to an unjust system of trading in cultural capital which is eventually transformed into economic capital, as working-class students become less likely to get high-paying jobs. (p. 81)

References:

McLaren, P. (2009). Critical pedagogy: a look at the major concepts. In A. Darder, M.P. Baltodano, & R. D. Torres (Eds.), The Critical Pedagogy Reader (pp. 61-83) New York, NY: Routledge.

Personal Reflection: Classism

My most memorable experience of classism was in high school. I was a very solitary person in school; I did not enjoy the company of others. However, in high school, it is nearly impossible to avoid everyone all of the time. As a result of my solitary nature, I often found myself socializing with what was at the time the smallest and most remote of the social circles: the punks. For the most part, they were an impoverished group with tense smiles stretched across thin faces. I saw hunger written in the outlines of their ribcages and in the knobs of their boney spines, both clearly visible through their tee-shirts. It was a hunger for more than just food; it was a hunger for an answer—an answer to the wild fists they threw in the air. It seemed to me that every patch and pin sewn and tacked to their battered denim jackets was a frustrated start in the fitful sleep of their young lives. They were living a nightmare from which they could not rouse themselves. They did not know what society would grant them in their tomorrow or even that it would guarantee such a kindness as a tomorrow, and it frustrated them.

I remember seeing all that the rich students had. I remember seeing new cars. And I remember seeing the newer cars that replaced those that had been wrecked in frivolity. I saw new letterman’s jackets and new sneakers. And it all stood in stark contrast to the punks’ canvas high tops, worn through from having to walk rather than drive. They did not have patches and medals on brushed wool and leather that told the story of the school’s appreciation for a job well done; they wore different patches. The patches they wore spoke of impotent frustration. I made a few friends in that community. I saw those same friends become the living manifestations of Rilke’s panther. I saw my friends lash out at everyone and everything before giving in to the despair that haunts poverty. It upset me greatly.

I remember visiting one of my friends a year after I had gone away to college. I remember walking into his room and seeing him lying in bed, completely strung out on heroin. I can still see the puffy skin around the track marks in his arms. At the time, I was so angry with him for becoming a cliché. But it is not a cliché; it is a reality. It is a reality that my friend shared with everyone who had been just as poor and just as desperate. Although I am not a social person, I miss my friend.

Now, when I hear upper-middle class republicans talk about socialism as if it were the most vile and cruel thing ever conceived of by man, I think of their sons and daughters who had all they wanted, and then I think about my friend with a needle in his arm and the thousand yard stare that told me he was gone.