The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills

Author:C. Wright Mills
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published: 2000-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

2

The prime focus of the theory of balance is the Congress of the United States, and its leading actors are the Congressmen. Yet as social types, these 96 Senators and 435 Representatives are not representative of the rank and file citizens. They represent those who have been successful in entrepreneurial and professional endeavors. Older men, they are of the privileged white, native-born of native parents, Protestant Americans. They are college graduates and they are at least solid, upper-middle class in income and status. On the average, they have had no experience of wage or lower salaried work. They are, in short, in and of the new and old upper classes of local society.*

Some members of the Congress are millionaires, others must scrounge the countryside for expense money. The expenses of office are now quite heavy, often including the maintenance of two homes and traveling between them, the demands of an often busy social life, and the greatly increased costs of getting elected and staying in office. An outside income is now almost indispensable for the Congressmen; and, in fact, four out of five of the Representatives and two out of three of the Senators in 1952 received incomes other than their Congressional salaries ‘from businesses or professions which they still maintain in their home communities, or from investments. Independently wealthy men are becoming increasingly common on Capitol Hill … For those who are without private means … life as a member of Congress can border on desperation.’* ‘If Federal law really meant what it seems to mean concerning the uses of cash in election campaigns,’ Robert Bendiner has recently remarked, ‘more politicians would wind up in Leavenworth than in Washington.’17

The political career does not attract as able a set of men as it once did. From a money standpoint, the alert lawyer. who can readily make $25,000 to $50,000 a year, is not very likely to trade it for the perils of the Congressman’s position; and, no doubt with exceptions, if they are not wealthy men, it is likely that the candidates for Congress will be a county attorney, a local judge, or a mayor—whose salaries are even less than those of Congressmen. Many observers, both in and out of Congress, agree that the Congress has fallen in public esteem over the last fifty years; and that, even in their home districts and states, the Congressmen are by no means the important figures they once were.18 How many people, in fact, know the name of their Representative, or even of their Senators?

Fifty years ago, in his district or state, the campaigning Congressman did not have to compete in a world of synthetic celebrities with the mass means of entertainment and distraction. The politician making a speech was looked to for an hour’s talk about what was going on in a larger world, and in debates he had neither occasion nor opportunity to consult a ghost writer. He was, after all, one of the best-paid men in his locality and a big man there.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.