1956

21 Pages 5146 Words

ig, rough New York based – Gilded Age rich. This merger of the traditional with the modern socialite grandeur of the New Yorker was pivotal to the formation of the American elite. Out of this marriage came the founding of British-style boarding schools like Groton and Hotchkiss, new social institutions such as private country clubs, debutante societies, and restricted suburbs. Outsiders who somehow found their way into the educational institutions of the Episcopacy were usually horrified by what they saw. The enormous inheritability of status, the devolution of the ideals of gentlemanliness into a glorification of undergraduate carousing, the lack of academic standards, the casual and unearned assumption of superiority, the inability to see immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and the poor as fully human. The Episcopacy provided plenty of evidence to support the idea that it was, as Newt Gingrich would say, ‘a corrupt elite’ (The Atlantic Monthly 1995 ) Political Power: Two Major Theories The two broad theories of how power work or is distributed in societies, the first suggest that power in the USA resides with its citizens (one person, one vote), or in the groups where citizens belong. This is called the pluralist view. Pluralists argue that power is distributed around society through representatives who act on behalf of others or other groups, and are controlled in expressing the wishes of the groups involved. Criticisms of this theory suggest that people at the top mislead the American public, which means that people with greater information have more power. Appointed positions wield considerable power, more than just a vote, and that campaign financing leaves politicians indebted to contributors not to everyone as is assumed. (Domhoff 1967 ) The other point of view is the elitist view or conflict view. The argument is that in reality, power is concentrated in the hands of a few, a very small group of people (an elite ) who manipulate...