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The Power Elite and the State: How Policy is Made in America (Social Institutions and Social Change)

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This is not an easy book. Domhoff spends a lot of time talking about himself -- how his critics have mistreated, distorted, and ignored him; how he's changed his views since his last book; how his opponents are all wrong. But, on the whole, it seems Domhoff is right. Following not only the IEMP theory of Michael Mann (The Sources of Social Power: Vol. 1, A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760, Vol. 2: The Rise of Classes and Nation States, 1760-1914), but Mann's workaholic, just-the-facts style, Domhoff tries to get to the bottom of how policy is made. The result is usually a rather boring story -- a lot of business elites with names you don't recognize working on details you don't care about -- but Domhoff is trying to make the point that it is the business elites, after all, who call the shots. And he appears to do so convincingly. His brilliance is that he does not try to win by engaging in petty arguments with his intellectual opponents, but simply points out key facts they didn't mention, or even notice. Someone claims a government bureaucrat came up with a law and Domhoff shows that a business group sent them a similar proposal several months before. That sort of thing. The result is a convincing book, if not a fascinating one.

In his analysis of the nature and distribution of power in the US, G. William Domhoff shows eminently that the US is ruled by a power elite, which is the leadership arm of an upper class rooted in capitalism.

He illustrates his thesis by dissecting the tractations around the Social Security Act, the Wagner Act and the Employment Act, as well as the composition of the Council on Foreign Relations and the IMF negotiations in Bretton-Woods.

The author discerns 4 segments in the US ruling class:

1. an internetional segment: transnational corporations represented by organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations or the Committee for Economic Development

2. a nationalist manufacturing segment, rooted in domestic markets and represented by NAM or similar organizations

3. a southern segment, based on land ownership and cheap labor

4. a more localized segment, based on local real estate and development interests.

Polically, the southern segment sides with the international segment on international trade (export of cotton and other commodities), and with the nationalists on labor and welfare issues.

For the author, this power structure can only be challenged by social disruptions, be they violent or non-violent. Only turmoil can lead to increased voter turnout or change in voting (example: protest against the Vietnam war).

A natural capitalist evolution where the rich get richer and the poor poorer can only be challenged by a countervailing political party and the state. But the power elite is precisely there for making sure that such intervention does not happen.

The author was hopeful to see a major shift in US policies with the death of 'the old bogeyman: the red menace'. However, the red menace has been replaced by terror organizations like Al-Qaeda. The end of the Cold War did not lead to a decline of the military budget (the peace dividend). On the contrary, the military and ontelligence budgets are at an all time high, eating one half of the total US budget.

Keynesism is still discredited and state spending is not directed to social needs (the number of US citizens without healthcare protection is also on an all time high). The wealth and income distributions are more skewed than ever. The unions and most liberal social movements are on the defensive, if not completely dead.

As always, G. William Domhoff's work is highly informative and a must read for all those interested in US history and in US governmental policies.