I agree somewhat with Zach and Sarah. I agree with Mills' theory that the elite have the greatest influential power in regards to our government. Their example of Bill Gates is the best example to give. He's an extremely wealthy person, with a large following, and uses that influence to get policy created. His influence comes from his extreme wealth. There are also the social elite and media personnel that have large audiences and followings. Their influences on large amounts of citizens will allow them to get policy created. For example, Beyoncé has millions of supporters. If she decided that she wanted a policy and had millions of citizens supporting her, a party is likely to pick up Beyoncé's policy because they want her supporters in their coalition. I also disagree with Zach when he says that the elite are truly not working for themselves with welfare and other reform. Some might be seriously a supporter of the cause but creating those reforms work in their favor. A billionaire elite is unlikely to be truly upset that there isn't welfare. But, he knows that there are many people that need programs like welfare. Therefore, when he creates this program, those people begin to be fans of him. He builds up a larger support group this way. A larger following gives him more influence, and more influence gives him more power. 
I agree that the elitist theory holds some truth, and I understand the idea of famous people having power and all of that, but I still believe hyperpluralism is the more accurate theory to describe our government. Your example of a billionaire elite creating welfare for support is a good idea in theory but I don't think that's how it truly works. For example, the video that we watched about the working group that rallied together to petition and sign a letter to send go congress to create policy shows you that even say a billionaire didn’t want it in place, the average citizens can still come together to create policy that they want to see. Billionaire’s, even with all of their wealth, can’t simply buy out the voices of thousands of people coming together for a cause. Also, billionaire’s aren’t just dishing out money for causes that don’t affect them to gain popularity because billionaire’s don’t want to be popular. In fact you usually don’t hear about the billionaire’s that are supporting political groups. They rather donate to 501(c)(4)s so that his contribution remained anonymous. Another thing that I noticed after the scavenger hunt is that a lot of democratic major contributions are from groups like Act Blue and the NEA who can be many individual donating small amounts over the internet, which would support hyperpluralism because it’s many citizens not just billionaires, or it’s teachers unions. Teacher’s aren’t wealthy people, most at least, so their interests are really looked at and important to the government even though they re not elite.
ReplyDeleteAfter discussing the different theories farther in class and the scavenger hunt, I agree with you in part. I still agree more with elitist theory but hyper pluralism does have good points as well. You make a good point.
Delete