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C. Wright Mills's Power Elites

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Yes there is a Power Elite in our society today, but in comparison it is not the same as it used to be in the past. C. Wright Mills had listed the power elite to be the “government; military; and corporations” (Elwell, p. 10), but today the military is not considered one of the three power elites but a tool to further boost government and corporations through the industrial elite and it’s profits.
The elite’s source of power comes from the ownership of these higher positions within these organizations. The more power that they obtain, control, and dictate the more authority that they will hold. The main concept that these positions hold is the agreement on their world views in the form of civil rights, and constitutional rights. Mills had stated
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Through our country's history, we have always dealt with power inequality. It has been an issue since as far as we can remember, although specifically the late 19th century was a very climatic era for the United States. It is considered to be the time of the most exceptional growth, prosperity, and innovation. Even so, the country had also been sent into a devastation because of the Civil War. The prime difficulty during this time was not only the constant struggles between the gap of the rich and the poor, but also the extreme fights towards power and wealth.

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According to C. Wright Mills power is seen as structural due to bureaucracies becoming centralized and enlarged and believes that the power elite consist of important individuals who are involved in the major institutions of society today. These institutions consist of the economy the government and the military. Mills believes that these three institutions combined create a hierarchy that follow the key understanding to modern societies. These major institutions are seen as a group of elitists who hold positions of power that control society. The power of these structured elitists is embedded in their authority, which consists of socially run organizations, rather than organizations that are run by powerless individuals.

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Mills believes that in modern societies there is an elite who controls the resources of majority of bureaucratic organizations that have come to dominate industrial societies. As time passed by, these bureaucracies have converged and expanded, the circle of those who run these organizations have narrowed and the impact of their decisions have become enormous. According to Mills, the power elite are the key people in the thre major institutions of modern society. These are people working in the Economy, Government and Military. The bureaucracies of state, corporations, and military have become so big and centralized and their power isunprecedented in human history.

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