The Power Elite and the State: How Policy Is Made in America

Front Cover
Transaction Publishers - Political Science - 315 pages

This volume presents a network of social power, indicating that theories inspired by C.Wright Mills are far more accurate views about power in America than those of Mills's opponents.

Dr. Domhoff shows how and why coalitions within the power elite have involved themselves in such policy issues as the Social Security Act (1935) and the Employment Act (1946), and how the National Labor Relations Act (1935) could pass against the opposition of every major corporation. The book descri bes how experts worked closely with the power elite in shaping the plansfor a post-World War II world economic order, in good part realized during the past 30 years. Arguments are advanced that the fat cats who support the Democrats cannot be understood in terms of narrow self-interest, and that moderate conservatives dominated policy-making under Reagan.

 

Contents

SOCIAL NETWORKS POWER AND THE STATE
1
Liberalism Marxism and State Theory
6
States and Social Classes
9
DOES IT MATTER WHO GOVERNS?
17
Indicators of Power
19
Uncertainty in Organizations
20
The Cohesion of Class Segments
22
States and Social Democrats
25
The Who Why and How of the IMF
159
Discussion and Conclusion
181
STATE AUTONOMY AND THE EMPLOYMENT ACT OF 1946 AN EMPIRICAL ATTACK ON A THEORETICAL FANTASY
187
Conflict over the Employment Bill
196
Conclusion
201
CLASS SEGMENTS AND TRADE POLICY 19171962 A CHALLENGE TO PLURALISTS AND STRUCTURAL MARXISTS
205
The Pluralists
206
The Structural Marxist
208

The Need for State Unity
26
Conclusion
28
BUSINESS LEADERS EXPERTS AND THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT
29
Corporate Liberalism and Mills
32
The Distortion of CorporateLiberal Theory
40
The Social Security Act of 1935
44
THE WAGNER ACT AND CLASS CONFLICT 18971948
65
The Origins and Tribulations of Collective Bargaining
71
Labor Policy in the Early New Deal
79
Who Wrote the Wagner Act?
91
Why Did It Pass?
96
Implications and Conclusions
104
DEFINING THE NATIONAL INTEREST 19401942 A CRITIQUE OF KRASNERS THEORY OF AMERICAN STATE AUTONOMY
107
Krasners Theory and Findings
108
The Council on Foreign Relations and the National Interest
113
Discussion
144
THE RULING CLASS DOES RULE THE STATE AUTONOMY THEORY OF FRED BLOCK AND THE ORIGINS OF THE INTERNATIONAL M...
153
Blocks Theory
155
Trade Policy in the Interwar Years
209
Postwar Trade Policies
210
The Trade Expansion Act
217
Conclusion
222
WHICH FAT CATS SUPPORT DEMOCRATS?
225
Right Turn and the Decline of the Democrats
226
Politics and Policies
229
Fat Cats and Democrats
232
The South and the Growth Machines
235
Jews and Democrats
245
THE DECLINE OF DISRUPTION AND THE RETURN OF CONSERVATISM
257
Disruption and Power
260
Was Business Disorganized?
264
The Rise of CapitalLabor Conflict
276
ENVOI
283
BIBLIOGRAPHY
287
INDEX
307
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page xiv - I shall be concerned to prove that the fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which energy is the fundamental concept in physics.
Page v - The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by such learned dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe — that the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power, and hence a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms.

Bibliographic information