The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills, 1956, Excerpts
No one can be truly powerful unless he has access to the command of major institutions, for it is over these institutional means of power that the truly powerful are powerful. By the power elite, we refer to those political, economic, and military circles which as an intricate set of overlapping cliques share decisions having at least national consequences. In so far as national events are decided, the power elite are those who decide them.
At the pinnacle of each of the three enlarged and centralized domains, there have arisen those higher circles which make up the economic, the political, and the military elites. At the top of the economy, among the corporate rich, there are the chief executives; at the top of the political order, the members of the political directorate; at the top of the military establishment, the elite of soldier-statesmen clustered in and around the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the upper echelon. As each of these domains has coincided with the others, as decisions tend to become total in their consequences, the leading men in each of the three domains of power – the warlords, the corporation chieftains, the political directorate – tend to come together, to form the power elite of America .
Just who exactly is
going to the Bilderberg meeting?
10 Jun 2015
The Bilderberg meeting, an annual
gathering of some of the most powerful and influential figures in the world,
starts on Thursday [Austria]. But who's on this year's guest list? Critics call
it a sinister conspiracy, reinforcing without accountability the dominance of a
transatlantic capitalist cabal. Those involved say it's merely an informal way
to understand better the way the world works and to share their expertise to
improve it. Whatever one's view, an invitation to the four-day Bilderberg
meeting is a sign that someone has arrived as a politician, business leader,
administrator or opinion-influencer.
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