The Elevation of the Elite: Historical Trends and Complicity of the Masses

Paul Hofacker ()

Public Organization Review, 2005, vol. 5, issue 1, 3-33

Abstract: A small group of citizens wields significant influence in the corporate, political, and military realms of American society. This group is known in the literature as the “elite.” Looking at the disparity between the elite and the masses of society in terms of education, wealth, and political power, one might surmise a conspiracy against fundamental democratic principles of equality, justice, and economic fair play. This article addresses non-conspiratorial cultural-contextual factors of history, social structure, media, psychology, education, and the marketplace contributing to the elite’s existence. It is concluded that non-conspiratorial factors play a primary role in their rise to global influence. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Keywords: capitalism; elites; power elite; organizational elite; masses; mass culture; corporations; democracy; foundationalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11115-004-6132-6 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:porgrv:v:5:y:2005:i:1:p:3-33

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11115/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11115-004-6132-6

Access Statistics for this article

Public Organization Review is currently edited by Ali Farazmand

More articles in Public Organization Review from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().