“Those in authority within institutions and social structures attempt to justify their rule by linking it, as if it were a necessary consequence, with moral symbols, sacred emblems, or legal formulae which are widely believed and deeply internalized. These central conceptions may refer to a god or gods, the 'votes of the majority,' the 'will of the people,' the 'aristocracy of talents or wealth,' to the 'divine right of kings' or to the alleged extraordinary endowment of the person of the ruler himself.” PeopleIfsMayPersonsSocialWealthMoralTalentDivineKingsAuthorityConsequenceVoteInstitutionsSacredMajorityStructureExtraordinarySymbolsJustifyConceptionRulersAristocracyEndowmentEmblemsSocial StructureDivine RightDivine Right Of Kings Author:C. Wright Mills
“Any contemporary political re-statement of liberal and socialist goals must include as central the idea of a society in which all men would become men of substantive reason, whose independent reasoning would have structural consequences for their societies, its history and thus for their own life fates.” MenIdeasReasonPoliticalGoalFateConsequenceIndependentStatementsContemporaryReasoningSocialistLife Fate Author:C. Wright Mills
“By the power elite, we refer to those political, economic, and military circles which as an intricate set of overlapping cliques share decisions having at least national consequences. In so far as national events are decided, the power elite are those who decide them.” PoliticalDecisionPowerShareEconomicMilitaryEventsConsequenceDecidedCirclesElitesIntricateCliqueOverlapping Book:The Power Elite Source: The Power Elite
“What I am asserting is that in this particular epoch a conjunction of historical circumstances has led to the rise of an elite of power; that the men of the circles composing this elite, severally and collectively, now make such key decisions as are made; and that, given the enlargement and the centralization of the means of power now available, the decisions that they make and fail to make carry more consequences for more people than has ever been the case in the world history of mankind” PeopleMenWorldMeanMadeGivenDecisionCasesFailingMankindParticularHe ManKeysCircumstancesConsequenceHistoricalAvailableCirclesElitesWorld HistoryComposingEpochConjunctionsCentralizationEnlargement Book:The Power Elite Source: The Power Elite
