Monday, December 15, 2014
Theories of Power in a Democracy
Reading the excerpt from C. Wright Mills' The Power Elite and hearing the discussion in class pertaining to the different theories of power in democracy causes me to overall disagree with Mills. While he makes strong points about Elitists and their control of government, he emphasizes their power to an extent that I would consider over-exaggerated. I do not completely disagree with everything he wrote; he makes a good point when saying "they allow their fears and their hopes to affect their assessment of their own power" which basically is arguing that the elites of our democracy are not cynical, and while they may only be considering their own values, Bill Gates being a strong example, they do not realize their power as much as some may believe. While everyone is obviously not equal, and economically strong individuals hold greater political power than the average citizen, it's critical to understand that even though money may equal power, it does not then simply equal policy and political result (Bill Gates being an exception, he is an individual with extremely large amounts of money and influence that no one has truly achieved before) . I agree that the big three as Mills mentioned is evident, and has strong influence on our politics, but the competition between opposing corporations, interest groups, unions, etc. causes the system to slow down to such a rate that the voice of each influential group, in whatever form it may be, is no stronger than the next. Not to say each and every one of them are equal, but rather there is such a vast range of influence on the government that none create the result they all hope for. As Wilson states in his Four Theories of Elite Influence, "no single group, even if it had many political resources, could dominate most, or even much, of the political process." To conclude, C. Wright Mills makes strong and reasonable points on the elites behind our democracy, however he over dramatizes their control.
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"it's critical to understand that even though money may equal power, it does not then simply equal policy and political result"...love your analysis here!
ReplyDeleteI agree with this post in its view of how the elite operate in relation to the government. I do not think elitists hold enough political power to the point where they can create any type of policy they want and see it in action, Yet, I do believe that they influence the policy that is created more than the average person with less money is able to. It is arguable that the elitism theory can be interpreted in such a way that it supports the hyperpluralism theory as well. This may sound confusing and it is probably going to be hard for me to explain it, but I'll try my best to get everyone on my train of thought. So, there are an endless number of factions in our country that can be divided in many different groups even containing overlapping categories of interests. Though it is a pretty broad grouping, I believe we can call the elitists a group of their own. They are all working toward the same general goal of influencing policy even if the policy each elitist wants is different. Now it seems that this group would easily be able to dominate the government considering their combined amount of influence. But, this is where the idea of hyperpluralism comes into play. These elitists all want a different policy that will benefit only themselves. Not only do the elite compete among each other, but they are also limited by the majority of the country which is made up into a lot of minority groups. This prevents any one group no matter how wealthy from controlling the government and resulting in power of a minority. Instead, the government has to take into consideration many more groups of people who all want different things.This results in compromise in the government. Of course, compromise sounds ideal because it is created in hopes of pleasing all the groups, bu tin fact the exact opposite is apparent. Compromising to accommodate for an entire country's views results in no definite decision and leaves everyone confused and angry with the government.Therefore, I agree with Ryan's idea of the elite, but I also think that the interest groups in our country are more powerful than the government is and will continue to have conflicting policy put in place. I hope I was able to explain my ideas in a way that made some sort of sense!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with "the elitism theory can be interpreted in such a way that it supports the hyperpluralism theory as well" and your overall explanation of that idea, in fact I said in class on Thursday or Friday that it is more of a "hyperelitism" system if you want to call it that (lol). But in any case, I completely agree with you and the idea that we apparently share.
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