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Despite what some corners of the internet would have you believe, the power of the “deep state” is nothing compared to the out-in-the-open power elite. Whatever the outcome of the turbulent Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump presidential contest, the power elite—the leadership of our most important national institutions drawn from a tiny pool of Americans—will still be with us, for better or worse, calling the main shots in politics, business and beyond.
This concept of a power elite made famous by sociologist C. Wright Mills [ [link removed] ], who viewed American power as dominated by the politically engaged upper classes—the major CEOs and boards of directors, the president, his Cabinet, and heads of major government institutions, law firms, universities, foundations and media outlets. Since Mills’ day, the power elite often has drawn ire and attracted impassioned polemics, but some scholars have made it a legitimate object of analysis of how power is distributed in our society.
America’s power elite may leave much to be desired, but in broader terms, it has seen the country through a remarkably long stretch of success. Given the poor performance of other nations’ oligarchies, this is no mean achievement. The question now is whether our elites hold together and lead in the face of mounting foreign and domestic problems while staying committed to their core liberal values.
The Left and Right Agree—but They’re Both Wrong
Pointing out that a small group of elites runs America is no conspiracy theory; it’s a fact. According to political scientist Thomas Dye [ [link removed] ], power elite theory rests on the simple premise that, in any society, a small minority of people controls all the power, and a large majority does not. Made up of just a few thousand individuals, these power elites lead America’s most important institutions and make the key decisions on war and peace, taxes and spending, crime and punishment, arts and entertainment, etc.
Our power elites compete hard over policy issues but maintain a distinct and underlying worldview. Dye identifies this long-running “liberal establishment” as characterized by toleration and public-mindedness. Part of that toleration includes open-mindedness on who may join the power elites, which gives them some connection to the rest of the American public. While our top elites often come from great privilege, a large percentage have middle-class origins, especially those who graduate from the most prestigious liberal universities. As President Joe Biden supposedly once said [ [link removed] ], in America “a river of power … flows through the Ivy League.”
Power elite theory competes with pluralist theory for explaining how American democracy actually operates. Analysts like Dye admit that evidence for a power elite’s oligarchic dominance of American politics is inconclusive—mostly because the pluralist arguments are also persuasive. Yet for many on both the left and the right, this power elite theory explains why democratic “majority rule” often fails at making important changes.
From the left, Fordham University sociologist Heather Gautney’s recent book “The New Power Elite” [ [link removed] ]expands the power elite concept to include billionaires and celebrities. In her view, Donald Trump represents these new social movements: With Howard Zinn-like zeal, she focuses her analysis on declining living standards for working people while billionaires’ wealth has skyrocketed. “The condition of gross inequality and concentrated power is the result of a concerted class program, now decades in the making, to transfer wealth and political power away from ordinary people and into the hands of a few,” she intones.
Interestingly, Gautney lays the rise of this new power elite almost as much at the feet of liberals as she does conservatives. For instance, she argues most Jan. 6 rioters at the U.S. Capitol were “law-abiding people radicalized in a context of chronic economic instability and endemic corruption and social alienation. … Liberals helped fan the flames of resentment by relentlessly painting Trump voters as losers and lowlifes.”
From the right, in his recent “Regime Change,” [ [link removed] ] University of Notre Dame political scientist Patrick Deneen shares Gautney’s concerns about an out-of-touch power elite, and alarm over the growing wealth disparity and leaders’ incompetent handling of foreign policy and financial crises. Deneen regards our power elite as a decadent technocracy pushing a bankrupt liberal ideology. His proposed solution is a gradualist though hostile power elite takeover by “common good”-focused conservatives.
Although they both make some telling points, I have to disagree with both Gautney and Deneen. No doubt, the nation’s power elite has many faults. But its openness to new groups and its defense of a classical liberal worldview—democratically elected government, respect for the rule of law, free trade and a regulated free market—has kept the country prosperous and stable.
Fine Italian Hands
Power elite theory originates with 19th- and early 20th-century social scientists who analyzed the nature of good and bad regimes. The “Italian School” of social theorists Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Vilfredo Pareto and Robert Michels fixed a penetrating stare at political power and the people behind it, as described by James Burnham in his fascinating study, “The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom.” [ [link removed] ] Their analyses and conclusions can tell us a lot about today’s power elite.
According to Mosca, power elites always govern based on a “political formula.” This is the presiding myth—an unquestioned assumption, such as the “divine right of kings” or the “will of the people.” (In the modern United States, free elections and liberal social policy are among the key elements of our political formula.) As new social forces develop, new ruling classes emerge. What truly separates power elites from ordinary humans are their ambition and credentials, not necessarily their superior wisdom or fitness to rule.
Power elite theorists like Michels note that even institutions that seem democratic are really oligarchies in disguise. As his “iron law of oligarchy” simply states, “who says organization, says oligarchy.” [ [link removed] ] No matter which organization you look at—your labor union, church or cheerleading squad—you’ll notice that a self-selected few have taken charge. Michels points out that even political parties professing their commitment to democracy remain oligarchic. In 2016, the Democratic Party’s use of “superdelegates” [ [link removed] ] to ensure the correct primary outcome—insider Hillary Clinton over outsider Bernie Sanders—would not have surprised Michels in the least.
Pareto, in his massive “Mind and Society,” stresses the need for a “circulation of elites”—the belief that the power elite needs a mix of conservative “lions” and liberal “foxes” to govern effectively. Major upheavals can occur when the power elite becomes too unbalanced to cope with the immediate crisis. Burnham relates how the British power elite in 1938 stumbled at Munich but later recovered by replacing the fox Neville Chamberlain with the lion Winston Churchill.
Without this “circulation of elites,” power elites become fossilized and nonadaptive, like the mullahs who rule Iran today, who appear skilled only at ensuring their own survival. (Sometimes, not even that [ [link removed] ].) Other power elites fail when too many important domestic interests are excluded from power, such as in Russia before 1917, or when they lead their country to defeat in a major war, such as the Nazis and Japanese militarists in 1945.
Sound institutions and what Mosca calls “the juridical defense”—respect for the rule of law—are essential for democratic regime preservation, but ultimately, only power can counter power. Without a strong and self-assured power elite maintaining its vigilance, any democracy might slip into authoritarian “Bonapartism,” as we have seen lately with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and too many other cases.
A Good Track Record But an Uncertain Future
America’s power elite may be tough to love, but it deserves some respect on many big things, especially in preserving a successful democratic and inclusive political formula and permitting a healthy circulation of elites, especially in the post-World War II years.
Despite the criticism of Mills and his disciples, the liberal order constructed by the post-war power elite has enabled American citizens to enjoy a high level of civilization and avoid destructive war with our Cold War enemies. Americans boast one of the highest standards of living in the world—exceeding Western Europe. Even poor Americans have more purchasing power than the average citizens in most European countries, according to the Foundation for Economic Education [ [link removed] ]. Nearly 92% of American households [ [link removed] ] own a car. More than half of the U.S. population has completed post-secondary education [ [link removed] ].
In recent decades, the power elite has become increasingly open to women and minorities occupying important positions of power. Of course, the process of getting to this point has been gradual and far from perfect, but it indeed happened. In fact, some members of today’s power elite argue vociferously for greater presence of these historically disenfranchised groups among their own ranks—for more women in the boardroom, for instance. This “circulation of elites” has ensured the power elite’s vitality and connection to the people.
Nevertheless, the power elite marginalizes both far-right and far-left extremism, despite their intermittent appeal among the common folk. For example, in “Who Rules America?” [ [link removed] ] sociologist G. William Domhoff notes the refusal of key business groups like the Business Roundtable—power elite central—to endorse Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims. Other elites have strongly rejected the pro-Palestinian campus protests.
Certainly, our leaders have failed the country on several occasions, such as the Vietnam War, the Iraq invasion of 2003 and the 2008 financial crisis. In those cases, we recovered sufficiently to avoid a regime-threatening crisis. Still, these blunders have come at some cost. Our most prestigious national institutions, nearly across the board, have suffered diminishing public confidence for years, according to a long-running Gallup poll [ [link removed] ].
It is unclear what can turn around this lack of confidence. Mosca believed that “the virtues of a good state contain the seeds of its own destruction.” The liberal political formula that sustained the country for so long is showing signs of wear and incoherence. Liberalism, which Burnham many years ago [ [link removed] ] called “that strange mélange of sentimental confusion,” has only gotten stranger and more confused. As we look into the future, can the power elite see us through the challenges that may undercut regime legitimacy? The dark clouds gathering on the horizon are hard to ignore.
For instance, can we avoid a major conflict with China over Taiwan, where our current policy of defending the status quo looks increasingly untenable? Currently, China is encircling Taiwan [ [link removed] ] in an extensive military exercise as punishment for alleged independence sentiments. A costly war over an issue perhaps peripheral to our defense but vital to our prestige risks a major political crisis at home.
Another unavoidable problem is the safety net of Social Security [ [link removed] ], which is quickly approaching insolvency. Washington simply cannot ignore this fact forever, and to be sure, dealing with this reality will require major sacrifices. On the technology front, can the power elites face down their fellow Silicon Valley elites with policies that limit the massive disinformation [ [link removed] ] and intellectual property violations [ [link removed] ] churned out by out-of-control artificial intelligence platforms and social media?
Finally, we come to the immediate political challenge: acceptance of the 2024 presidential election results and, if needed, the peaceful turnover of power. Clearly, the power elite is sharply divided and wavering on some of its cherished democratic beliefs: Trump continues to raise doubts [ [link removed] ] about fair elections. Meanwhile, legal efforts, some dubious, aim to stop Trump’s candidacy through the courts. Will the power elite defend election integrity, whatever the outcome?
The power elite may show signs of wavering, but it does not appear to be undergoing the crisis of confidence that characterized the failure of other elites faced with great adversity. It is receptive, if somewhat grudgingly, to public opinion. It is not seeking to abandon the liberal political formula that made America a historical success. Although far from loveable, or even admirable at times, our power elite looks a lot better when we consider the alternatives.

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