User:Ctucke22/SOCI344sandbox

User:Ctucke22/SOCI344sandbox

Note: Edits are from original article: Elite Theory. Added photo of C. Wright Mills and description. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_theory

C. Wright Mills
Mills published his book The Power Elite in 1956, in which he claimed to present a new sociological perspective on systems of power in the United States. He identified a triumvirate of power groups—political, economic and military—which form a distinguishable, although not unified, power-wielding body in the United States.

Mills proposed that this group had been generated through a process of rationalization at work in all advanced industrial societies whereby the mechanisms of power became concentrated, funneling overall control into the hands of a limited, somewhat corrupt group. This reflected a decline in politics as an arena for debate and relegation to a merely formal level of discourse. This macro-scale analysis sought to point out the degradation of democracy in "advanced" societies and the fact that power generally lies outside the boundaries of elected representatives.