-Caveat Lector-
from:
Elite Deviance (Fifth Edition)
David R. Simon
Allyn & Bacon(C) 1996,1993,1990,1986,1982
A Simon & Schuster Company
Needham Heights, Massachusetts 02194
ISBN 0-205-16460-9
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An interesting book. Here is a taste.
Om
K
--[1a]--
I
The Nature of Elite Deviance
ELITE DEVIANCE AND
THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE
On November 22,1993, Americans observed a most disturbing anniversary, It was
the thirtieth anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
President Kennedy's tragic murder is significant for a number of reasons.
o A 1993 poll by taken by CNN[1] indicated that a majority of Americans
believe that the United States would be a much better nation had President
Kennedy lived.
o Nearly 90 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. government was involved
in a conspiracy to murder their own president. President Kennedy's
assassination remains the unresolved "crime of the century,"[2] and the
actions of the government agencies that investigated it constitute the first
major scandal of the post-World War 11 era.
o When President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on 22 November
1963, a cover-up of the investigation into the crime was personally ordered by
President Johnson, Assistant Attorney General Katzenbach, and FBI Director
Hoover. They allegedly felt that Communist elements from either Cuba or the
Soviet Union (or both) might be involved, and feared a war would result. These
officials agreed that the public must be convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald
acted alone in killing the president. This was President Johnson's motive in
setting up the Warren Commission in December 1963. Moreover, the Warren Commis
sion did indeed find that Oswald had acted alone in killing the presi dent,
and that Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby had acted alone in killing Oswald
(who at the time was surrounded by nearly 200 armed law enforcement officers)
in the Dallas police station.
Subsequent investigations into the crime by the House Special Committee on
Assassinations (HSCA), 1975-1978, found numerous inconsistencies in the case.
The HSCA found that President Kennedy "was probably assassinated as a result
of a conspiracy."[3] Probable suspects included members of organized crime.
The precise nature of the conspiracy concerning the actual assassination, and
those persons or organizations who employed them were never determined, and,
consequently, numerous theories have been advanced. Between 1966 and 1993,
over 600 books and 2,000 articles were written about the Kennedy
assassination. The dominant view in these writings is that government agencies
killed their own president. They did this because Kennedy was going to make
peace with the Soviet Union and end the Cold War. There is also speculation
that Kennedy was going to disengage the United States from its involvement in
Vietnam. The JFK assassination is important in that it marks not only the
first major postwar scandal, but the beginning of a drastic decline in public
confidence in government agencies and politicians.
Between 1860 and 1920, the United States suffered only two major crises
involving corruption on the federal level. This amounts to about one scandal
every fifty years. However, beginning in 1963 with the investigation into the
assassination of President Kennedy, the U.S. government has experienced
repeated scandals. The scandals themselves are serious social problems,
causing all manner of social harm.
Following President Kennedy's death, the United States escalated its presence
in Vietnam. The Vietnam War was loaded with a number of scandalous incidents
that divided U.S. public opinion, and, ultimately, contributed to public
distrust in government. Vietnam was followed by the Watergate scandal which
caused public trust to decline even further. Politicians and governmental
agencies have been involved in a number of incidents that have contributed to
a deep public distrust of government.
Most significant was the conduct of the government during the Vietnam War
(1964-1975). The Pentagon Papers, investigative reporting, and leaks from
within the government had the effect of turning public opinion against the war
and the government. A number of governmental transgressions were revealed,
including:
The manipulation of Congress by President Johnson with the Gulf of Tonkin
incident; the indictment of high-ranking officers for war crimes similar to
those committed by the Germans and Japanese during World War II.
o The deliberate destruction of civilian targets by U.S. forces
o Intelligence agency suppression of information regarding enemy troop
strength and sympathizers in South Vietnam
o Falsified reports by U.S. field commanders regarding the destruction of
enemy targets
o The spraying of more than five million acres of South Vietnam with
defoliating chemicals
o The execution of more than 40,000 so-called enemy agents by the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) under the Phoenix Program (most without trial); and
unauthorized bombing raids against North Vietnam.
o From early 1969 until May 1970, President Nixon assured the U.S. people that
the neutrality of Cambodia was being respected. Yet Nixon had secretly ordered
the bombing of so-called enemy sanctuaries in that country during that period.
He was able to keep the bombings secret through the use of a double-entry
bookkeeping system arranged between the White House and the Department of
Defense.
o In 1975, governmental investigations revealed that the CIA had violated its
charter by engaging in domestic intelligence, opening the mail of U.S.
citizens and spying on congresspersons and newspaper reporters. Moreover, this
organization plotted the assassinations of a number of foreign political
officials.[4]
o Most significant, the Senate Intelligence Committee revealed that every U.S.
president from Eisenhower to Nixon had lied to the American people about the
activities of the CIA. Public confidence in government was also lowered when
it became known that every president since Franklin Roosevelt had used the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for political and sometimes illegal
purposes. After J. Edgar Hoover's death, we found out how the FBI had been
used by its longtime chief to silence his and the bureau's critics. Hoover had
also involved the FBI in a number of illegal acts to defeat or neutralize
those domestic groups that he thought were subversive.[5]
o The Watergate scandal, and its aftermath, 1972-1974, brought down the Nixon
administration. Watergate was also a most significant contributor to low
public confidence in government in the past quarter century. The litany of
illegal acts by governmental officials and/or their agents in Watergate
included securing illegal campaign contributions, dirty tricks to discredit
political opponents, burglary, bribery, perjury, wiretapping, harassment of
administration opponents with tax audits, and the like. By 1975, when the
above revelations became public and just after the end of the Watergate
scandal, public confidence in government was understandably low. One poll
revealed that 68 percent of Americans believed that the government regularly
lies to them.[6]
The effect of these developments is hardly surprising. In 1980, law professor
Arthur S. Miller declared that, in 1978, two years after President Carter's
election, distrust of government was actually higher than it was during the
Watergate period. Nearly two-thirds of votingage Americans expressed distrust
in government, and 70 percent expressed distrust in Congress. Thus, despite
the removal of corrupt figures from office, trust in government had not
increased. The result, claims Miller, may be a permanent erosion of political
trust and the eventual "undermining of the respect citizens have for political
institutions themselves."[7]
The Reagan administration did virtually nothing to increase public confidence
in the ethical conduct of government officials. In 1987, news broke concerning
what was to be the most damaging scandal of the Reagan administration, the so-
called Iran-Contra affair. The root of the scandal involved the diversion of
funds from profits on missiles sold to the Iranian government. The profits
were diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras, a counterrevolutionary force
virtually created by the CIA.[8]
At first the entire episode was blamed on marine Lt. Col. Oliver North.
Virtually all high ranking officials of the Reagan Administration claimed they
were "out of the loop" concerning any knowledge of the events. Subsequent
investigations and trial testimony, however, pointed to a massive cover-up by
White House aides and others:
o Item: North's 1989 trial revealed that at a 1984 national security group
meeting composed of Vice President Bush, the joint Chiefs of Staff, several
cabinet officers, and President Reagan, a discussion about Contra aid based on
solicitation of "third" parties (foreign governments) took place. This was
adopted as a strategy of getting around the Boland Amendment that forbade
further military aid to the Contras.[9]
o Item: President Reagan personally solicited the largest contributions for
Contra aid from foreign nations, and a number of Latin American governments
were requested to cooperate by falsifying arms sales transactions so knowledge
that the weapons were for the Contras could be hidden. Those nations agreeing
to falsify such documents were promised increased U.S. foreign aid.
o Item: Both the illegal arms sales and illegal solicitation of funds were
orchestrated by a secret group, the Enterprise, set up apart from the CIA and
other governmental agencies to assure secrecy The Enterprise was composed of
retired military and intelligence personnel, arms dealers, and drug smugglers.
o A report issued in 1994 by Special Counsel Lawrence Walsh indicated that
Reagan administration officials covered up many aspects of the scandal to
insure "plausible deniability" of knowledge of the scandal by President
Reagan. Walsh's report also concluded that former President George Bush had
lied to the press and the American people concerning his knowledge of various
aspects of Iran Contra.
Finally, the Clinton administration has been plagued by charges of unethical
and even criminal conduct in a host of areas:
o Two nominees for Attorney General, Zoe Baird and Judge Kimba Wood, had both
employed illegal aliens in violation of a 1986 immigration law, and their
nominations had to be withdrawn.
o A special prosecutor was appointed in 1994 to investigate the connection of
the President and Mrs. Clinton to the failed Whitewater Savings and Loan in
Arkansas. Mr. Clinton is also being sued for sexually harassing a former
Arkansas state employee. Soon after these suits were filed, the president
established his own legal defense fund, hoping to raise $2 million to ward off
his increasing legal costs.[10]
o In 1993, 100 agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms burned
the Waco, Texas compound of the extremist Branch Davidians cult. At least 72
cult members died in the fire and gunbattle. Federal investigators later
charged that field agents had altered written plans for the assault, and then
lied about the changes.
The U.S. Congress has also suffered its share of scandals, and these have
badly damaged its credibility.
Item: In 1989, House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas resigned after being charged
with 69 ethics charges, including selling copies of his own book at outrageous
prices as hidden campaign contributions. House member Toni Coelho (D, CA),
House Majority Whip, also resigned over charges of unethical practices in
raising campaign contributions.
Item: In 1992, the House Ethics Committee found that between 1988 and 1991,
355 current and former House members had written almost 20,000 overdrafts on
their accounts at the House bank. The scandal resulted in the defeats and/or
early retirements of several House and Senate candidates. Three members of the
Bush cabinet admitted writing overdrafts while House members, and the former
House sergeant-at-arms plead guilty to three felonies (including embezzlement,
wire fraud, and making false statements on his financial disclosure form) in
connection with the scandal.[11]
Item: In 1993, the former House Postmaster Robert Rota and three House Post
Office employees plead guilty to stealing cash and stamps.
Rota claimed he gave two House members, Dan Rostenkowski (D, IL) and Joe
Kolter (D, PA) $30,000 in Post Office funds. Rostenkowski, powerful head of
the House Ways and Means Committee is currently under indictment.[12]
These incidents, and numerous others documented throughout this book, are
symbolic of the major U.S. scandals that have made elite wrong doing a major
U.S. concern. According to an opinion study done in late 1990, public
confidence in major institutions is now at an all time low.
o Thirty percent of employees have personally witnessed violations of criminal
or ethics codes by their bosses, including making dangerous products, engaging
in criminal activity, practicing discrimination, and/ or breaking job safety
laws.
o Only one in ten Americans is satisfied with his or her job. Only three in
ten feel any loyalty to their company, and 43 percent claim they cannot trust
their co-workers.
o Seventy percent of Americans now claim that there are no living heroes,
while 80 percent believe that morals and ethics need to be taught in schools.
o Moreover, the public now believes that the leading cause of the United
States' economic decline is "unethical behavior by [business] executives."
o The lowest rated occupations for honesty and integrity include:
congressperson and local politician; TV evangelist; lawyer; stockbroker; oil
company and TV network executive; union leader; and insurance and car
salesperson.[13]
A 1991 study by the Kettering Foundation indicates that the American people
are highly alienated from political life. Namely, they feel excluded from the
political process by politicians, journalists, and lobbyists. Among the key
findings:
o Americans feel that money and privilege have replaced votes to the point
where many people feel there is no point in political participation;
underscoring this point is the fact that only 39 percent of those eligible
actually voted in the latest (1994) election. This means that voter turnout,
which reached a fifty-year low in 1986, has remained stable and shows no sign
of improving. The 1994 figure represents the lowest turnout in a
nonpresidential election of any industrial democracy in the world.
o The public believes that money has a pervasive influence in political
campaigns, wherein candidates often spend millions of dollars to secure
$100,000-a-year positions.
o The study also found that media (especially television) coverage of
campaigns further alienates voters, due in part to the use of the sound bite,
which reduces complex issues to slogans lasting only a few seconds of air
time.[14]
These findings closely resemble those presented by pollster Lou Harris in his
book, Inside America. Harris found that, by 1988, 82 percent of the public
expressed the belief that business is motivated primarily by greed. More over,
60 percent revealed a profound political alienation, believing that their
interests are not represented by politicians. Rather, they believe that the
political system serves the concerns of rich and powerful interest groups.
In a 1987 Harris poll, 81 percent of Americans felt that the rich get richer
and the poor get poorer. (This is the highest percentage recorded in response
to the question since Harris first asked it in 1966.)
The Crisis of Confidence continues into the 1990s. As Vice President Al Gore
states:
Public confidence in the federal government has never been lower. The average
American believes we waste 48 cents of every tax dollar. Five of every six
want fundamental change in Washington. Only 20 percent of Americans trust the
federal government to do the right thing most of the time�down from 76 percent
30 years ago.[15]
A 1994 poll indicated that less than 30 percent of Americans trust
Congress.[16]
Likewise, a 1992 American National Elections Study found that almost 70
percent of the public believes that government is untrustworthy, the highest
percentage since the question was first asked in 1964. Moreover, over two-
thirds of the public believe the government wastes a lot of money, and nearly
75 percent believe that the government is run "for a few big interests." Over
45 percent of the public believes that "quite a few of the people" running the
government are corrupt. Again, all the responses represent record levels of
public distrust of and contempt for government.[17]
Finally, a 1994 Newsweek poll found that 76 percent of the American people
believe their country is in a state of "moral and spiritual decline," and 55
percent of the public blame government and political leaders "for the problem
of low morals and lack of personal character" in the country.[18]
In addition, Harris discerned that public alienation is "deep seated in modern
American life," is "profoundly disturbing for the nation," and that, unless
something is done to reverse it, the nation faces certain trauma with a price
that could be "enormous."[19] While numerous social critics have recently
expressed alarm over the decline of ethics and honesty[20] and the rise of
greed and corruption among the nation's elite, it is important to realize that
the latest round of wrongdoing is merely part of a process that has been
consistent with American life for the past four decades. Moreover, large
corporations have proven every bit as deviant as political organizations.
Scandals within the Economic Sphere
The public's sagging confidence in major U.S. institutions extends beyond
government. Increasingly, big business has come to be viewed with distrust and
cynicism. Indeed, by 1979, big business tied with Congress as "least trusted"
from a list of ten major institutions.[21] Let's review some of the incidents
that have contributed to these negative feelings. Since the 1960s, when Ralph
Nader launched the consumer movement, consumer unhappiness with the quality of
goods and services provided by business has grown dramatically. By 1978, it
was estimated that the federal government alone received about ten million
consumer complaints annually.[22]
Some corporations have willfully marketed products known to be dangerous.
There are numerous examples of this problem, the most notorious being the
marketing of the Pinto by the Ford Motor Company. Ford knew that this car had
a defective gasoline tank that would ignite even in lowspeed rear-end
collisions, yet the company continued its sales. Ironically and tragically,
Ford continued to sell this defective and dangerous car, even though the
problem could have been solved for a cost of $11 per vehicle.[23]
In 1978, the Senate revealed that, between 1945 and 1976, approximately 350
U.S. corporations admitted to making bribes of some $750 million to officials
of foreign governments. Many of these companies made such payments without
informing their stockholders.[24] Moreover, the Watergate investigation
revealed that over 300 corporations illegally contributed to President Nixon's
1972 reelection campaign.[25] No corporate executives were sent to prison for
their involvement in concealing or making such payments.[26]
Another problem that has turned the public against business is the relatively
high incidence of fraud. For example, General Motors substituted Chevrolet
engines in thousands of its new Oldsmobiles, without informing customers of
the switch. Advertising is also full of examples of fraudulent claims for
products. And the stock market has been manipulated to defraud clients, as was
revealed in 1975, when officials of the Equity Life Insurance Company were
indicted for manipulating the price of shares by literally inventing thousands
of nonexistent insurance policies. Between $2 and $3 billion was lost by
thousands of investors, making this the largest investment fraud to date.
Equity's chairman along with several other company officials were convicted of
the crime but received suspended sentences or prison terms that varied from
only two to eight years.[27] By 1982, it was estimated that price fixing among
corporations costs the consumer $60 billion per year. In addition, between
1970 and 1980, 117 of 1,043 major corporations (11 percent) had committed at
least 1 serious criminal offense, including 28 cases of bribery, kickback, or
illegal rebates; 21 cases of illegal campaign contributions; 11 cases of
fraud; and 5 cases of tax evasion. In all, 50 executives were sent to jail,
and 13 fines were levied in excess of $550,000 (ranging to a high of $4
million).[28]
Perhaps the largest energizer of negative feelings toward big business has
been the realization that corporations are guilty of what we might call
"chemical crimes." Through their dumping of waste products into the air,
water, and landfills and the production of products that pollute
unnecessarily, businesses have assaulted the public with dangerous
implications for the health of present and future generations. Of the many
examples of this chemical assault, we will describe one in some detail-Love
Canal.
>From 1942 to 1953, the Hooker Chemical Company dumped more than 20,000 tons of
toxic chemical waste into the Love Canal near Niagara Falls, New York. After
Hooker sold the dumpsite to the Board of Education in 1953 for one dollar, an
elementary school and playground were built on the site, followed by a housing
development. For at least twenty years prior to 1977, toxic chemicals had been
seeping through to the land surface. However, in 1977, highly toxic black
sludge began seeping into the cellars of the school and nearby residences.
Tests showed the presence of eighty-two chemicals in the air, water, and soil
of Love Canal, among them, twelve known carcinogens, including dioxin, one of
the deadliest substances ever synthesized.
There is evidence that Hooker Chemical knew of the problem as far back as 1958
but chose not to warn local health officials of any potential problems because
cleanup costs would have increased from $4 million to $50 million. Knowledge
of the existence of toxic chemicals in the area caused a financial hardship
for the residents. Once word of the contamination got out, their homes became
worthless. But much more important, tests revealed that the inhabitants of
this area had disproportionately high rates of birth defects, miscarriages,
chromosomal abnormalities, liver disorders, respiratory and urinary disease,
epilepsy, and suicide. In one neighborhood a few blocks from the Love Canal, a
survey by the homeowners' association revealed that only one of the fifteen
pregnancies begun in 1979 ended in the birth of a healthy baby-four ended in
miscarriages, two babies were stillborn, and nine others were born
deformed.[29]
Today, it is now clear: Love Canal is merely the tip of the United States'
waste iceberg.
o Item: In 1993, the EPA and Harvard School of Public Health estimated that
particle pollution from factories causes 50,000 to 60,000 deaths each year.
Most vulnerable are children with respiratory diseases, asthmatics of all
ages, and elderly people with ailments like bronchitis. It is the poor and
working class that tend to live the closest to chemical factories, and suffer
the highest rates of pollution-caused cancer. Indoor pollution,
including second-hand cigarette smoke and radon gas causes 5,000 or more
cancer cases annually.[30]
o Item: Answering a congressional inquiry in 1990, the EPA identified 149
industrial plants in 33 states where the surrounding air was known to be
"quite dangerous."[31] At one facility in Port Neches, Texas, the lifetime
risk of contracting cancer was one in ten. A risk of one in one million is
considered unacceptable by EPA standards. Yet at another 45 of these plants,
the risk of contracting cancer was less than one in 100, and at all the others
the risk was greater than one in 10,000.[32]
o Item: By 1985, the EPA had recognized 19,000 hazardous waste dumpsites.
Eight hundred of these sites had been placed on a priority list, but only ten
had been cleaned up.[33]
o Item: In Summer 1988, beaches from Long Island to New Jersey were covered by
a "nauseating array of waste": plastic tampon applicators, balls of sewage two
inches thick, and a host of drug paraphernalia and medical waste, including
needles, syringes, crack (rock cocaine) vials, stained bandages, containers of
surgical stitches, prescription bottles, and vials of blood (some of which
tested positive for hepatitis B and HIV viruses).[34]
o Item: Since 1986, 10 million tons of sludge processed in local sewage
treatment plants in New York and New Jersey have been transported on barges
beyond the continental shelf and released underwater, threatening fishing
industries from South Carolina to Maine. The deaths of thousands of dolphins,
seals, birds, and fish along U.S. coasts have reached alarming proportions,
prompting local cleanup campaigns and protests.[35]
o Item: The Department of Energy is also experiencing environmental scandal.
In 1991, it was learned that the companies that operated the department's
Savannah River nuclear reactor, Westinghouse and Bechtel subsidiaries, hid
huge cost overruns by illegally transferring tens of millions of dollars in
and out of construction accounts. The illegal transfers also went to pay
Bechtel's expensive management fees, to construct unauthorized new projects,
and to hide other cost increases from both Congress and the Department of
Energy. The scandal followed news by the General Accounting Office that the
cleanup of the Department of Energy's radioactive poisons would cost $200
billion or more and would take up to fifty years. The department has spent $3
billion trying to repair three nuclear reactors at its Savannah River plant,
only one of which will be reopened. Moreover, it has shut down its
plutoniummachining and -processing plant in Colorado, and a nuclear repository
in New Mexico because of safety and environmental problems.[36]
The list of acts involving the United States' most powerful political and
business organizations and their leaders could be extended almost indefinitely
Similarly, scores of additional opinion polls registering mounting public
distrust, cynicism, and alienation regarding the United States' most powerful
economic and political institutions and the individuals who head them could be
discussed. What is most important for our purposes, however, is what these
incidents have in common. The characteristics they share comprise what we call
elite deviance. These characteristics include:
1. The acts are committed by persons from the highest strata of society:
members of the upper and upper-middle classes. Some of the deeds mentioned
earlier were committed by the heads of corporate and governmental
organizations, others were committed by their employees on behalf of the
employers.
2. Some of the acts are crimes in that they violate criminal statutes and
carry penalties such as fines and imprisonment.[37] Other acts violate
administrative or civil laws, which may also involve punishment. Included are
acts of commission as well as acts of omission.[38] Other acts, such as U.S.
presidents lying to the public about the Vietnam War, although not illegal,
are regarded by most Americans as unethical or immoral (i.e., deviant). Thus,
elite deviance may be either criminal or non-criminal in nature.
3. Some of the actions described above were committed by elites themselves for
personal gain (e.g., congresspersons who accepted bribes), or they were
committed by the elites or their employees for purposes of enhancing the
power, profitability, or influence of the organizations involved (e.g., when
corporations made bribes overseas for the purpose of securing business deals).
4. The acts were committed with relatively little risk. When and if the elites
were apprehended, the punishments inflicted were in general quite lenient
compared to those given common criminals.[39]
5. Some of the incidents posed great danger to the public's safety, health,
and financial well-being.
6. In many cases, the elites in charge of the organizations mentioned were
able to conceal their illegal or unethical actions for years before they
became public knowledge (e.g., Hooker Chemical's dumping of poison chemicals
and the presidential misuses of the FBI and CIA). Yet the actions mentioned
were quite compatible with the goals of such organizations (i.e., the
maintenance or enhancement of the organization's power and/or
profitability).[40]
A THEORY OF ELITE DEVIANCE
Elite deviance, in all its forms, now constitutes a major social problem for
U.S. society and, as will be explored, much of the world, as well. This does
not mean, however, that there is a consensus concerning what constitutes
deviance. Notions of elite wrongdoing, white-collar crime, and related
concepts are now the focus of intense debate in the social sciences. In this
regard, the conflict perspective and the evidence amassed in support of it
offer the best starting point concerning a causal theory of elite deviance.
Criminologists and students of criminal justice tend to focus on the study of
individual criminals in their research. The criminal justice system itself was
originally established to protect the rights of accused persons, not to
discover the causes of or ways to prevent criminal activity. As a result of
this bias in U.S. society, the social sciences focus heavily on individual
crimes, individual rights, and individual cases. This is especially the case
with so-called street crimes (e.g., homicide, robbery, burglary, and rape),
which receive the lion's share of attention and resources in law enforcement,
the courts, and correctional institutions. Street crimes are also the major
preoccupation of both the criminology and criminal justice fields.
This is not to say that the street crime problem is unimportant. Indeed, as we
will examine later in this book, street crime, organized crime, and elite
deviance are interrelated in numerous ways (see Chapter 8). In fact, the crime
problem in the United States is actually rooted in a system in which lower-
class criminals, the Mafia, a corrupt public sector, and deviant corporations
cooperate for purposes of profit and power.
Thus, our examination begins with the proposition that crime and deviance are
societally patterned. This means that certain sociological factors cause
crimes to be committed by both individuals and organizations. Among the most
important of these factors in American society is the U.S. power structure
itself.
The U.S. Social Structure: The Power Elite
The view of the U.S. social structure we support is the one advocated by the
late C. Wright Mills.[41] Mills proposed that the dominant institutional
structures of American life comprise a power elite of the largest
corporations, the federal government, and the military (see Figure 1.1).
Dominant Institutions: The Power Elite
Corporations Political Military
Institutions
The Mass Media
Lesser Institutions of Socialization
The Family Education Religion
FIGURE 1 -1 Mills' View of the American Social Structure
These dominant institutions are headed by elites, people whose positions
within organizations have provided them the greatest amounts of wealth, power,
and often prestige of any such positions in the nation. Immediately below this
power elite is a subgroup of corporations that comprise the mass media. The
source of their power is communications, which clearly differentiates elites
from nonelites in U.S. society A sizable Washington press corps waits for the
daily pronouncements of political elites. Moreover, 90 percent of the
commercials on prime-time television are sponsored by the nation's 500 largest
corporations.[42]
The corporate, political, and military worlds are interrelated in numerous
ways. Most members of the president's cabinet come from the ranks of big
business and return there when their government service ends; numerous
Pentagon employees, civilian and military, are employed by weapons industry
firms upon retirement.
These interrelationships mean that the deviance within this elite often
involves two or more organizations: one or more corporations and one or more
government agencies.
Power and private wealth are concentrated in the hands of the elite. Together,
these institutions determine primary societal objectives, priorities, and
policies and thus greatly influence the so-called lesser institutions (i.e.,
the family, religion, and education). The elite dominate these lesser
socializing institutions, as well as shape the American social character.
The Evidence for a Power Elite
Is the social structure of the contemporary United States characterized by a
heavy concentration of elite wealth and power? In the United States, elites
possess not only great riches and the ability to make decisions that affect
the conduct of nonelites (political power), but studies reveal that they also
exert a great deal of control over such resources as
education, prestige, status, skills of leadership, information, knowledge of
political processes, ability to communicate, and organization. Moreover,
elites (in America) are drawn disproportionately from ... society's upper
classes, which are made up of those persons ... who own or control a
disproportionate share of the societal institutions-industry, commerce,
finance, education, the military, communications, civic affairs, and law.[43]
One recent study concludes that there are 5,416 positions within the nation's
most powerful economic, governmental, military, media, legal, civic, and
educational institutions. These positions constitute a few ten thousandths of
1 percent of the population.[44] Yet the amount of resources they control is
immense. Consider these data for the early 1990s:
o In industry, 100 out of 200,000 corporations control 55 percent of all
industrial assets. The largest 500 industrial corporations control three
quarters of manufacturing assets.
o The largest 800 corporations employ 1 of every 5 workers in the civilian
labor force.[45]
o In transportation and utilities, 50 out of 67,000 companies control two
thirds of the assets in the airline, railroad, communications, electricity,
and gas industries.[46]
o In banking, 50 out of 14,763 banks control 64 percent of all banking assets.
Three of these banks, Bank America, Citicorp, and Chase Manhattan control
almost 20 percent of such assets.
o In insurance, 50 out of 2,048 firms control 80 percent of all insurance
assets. Two insurance companies, Prudential and Metropolitan Life con-trol
nearly one quarter of such assets.[47]
o In the mass media, a mere 50 corporations are in control. Twenty companies
own half the 61 million newspapers sold daily in the United States, and
another 20 companies receive over half the revenues from the 61,000 U.S.
magazines published. Three firms control most of the reve-nues and audiences
in television, while 10 control radio, 11 control book publishing, and 4
control movies.[48]
One basis of this great concentration of power and resources is the income and
wealth possessed by the elite that is, from its economic power. Such wealth is
owned by relatively few individuals in families and corporations.
Collectively, economic power is centralized in relatively few major
corporations and financial institutions. "Out of the 2 million or so
corporations, some 200 nonfinancial companies account for 80 percent of all
resources used in manufacturing; 60 percent of all assets, three fifths of all
buildings, equipment, and land are owned by nonfinancial companies."[49]
The top 100 industrial corporations now control 75 percent of the assets of
Fortune 500 corporations.[50] One study of the 250 largest U.S. corporations
found that all but a handful (seventeen) had at least one of their chief
executives sitting on the board of at least one additional corporation in the
top 250. Some of them even held seats on competing companies, a practice that
has been illegal since 1914 with the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act.
Moreover, even people who serve on the board of directors of one company may
serve as an executive of another company. This situation has been found to
exist for over 250 directors of the top 500 corporations.[51]
More important than such interlocks is the shared ownership that characterizes
U.S. corporate capitalism, concentrated among large banks and wealthy
families. Of the 14,000 commercial banks in the United States, 100 control
half of all bank deposits.[52] Many of these banks administer trust funds of
wealthy individuals or other sources of capital with which they purchase
stock. One study done in the 1980s observed that people who sit on the board
of directors of General Motors also have seats on 29 other corporate boards,
including Gulf Oil, Anaconda Copper, Proctor and Gamble, Chase Manhattan Bank,
and American Express. Collectively, the number of boards interlocked by
members of these corporations includes 700 companies. Most important, these
networks of interlocking directorates tend to remain stable over time.[53]
What do all these facts mean? The largest 500 or so manufacturing firms and
some 50 financial institutions, controlling two-thirds of all business income
and half the nation's bank deposits, are interlocked by directorships and
controlled by less than one-half of 1 percent of the population. Put simply,
U.S. corporate assets reside in a few hands. More specifically, half of all
assets in industry, banking, insurance, utilities, transportation,
telecommunications, and the mass media are controlled by a mere 4,500
individual presidents and directors.[54] This concentration allows a very
small corporate community to exercise power over one-third of the nation's
gross national product and considerable indirect influence over the remainder
of the nation's goods and services.[55 This is true because
corporate leaders can invest money where and when they choose, expand, close,
or move their factories and offices at a moment's notice; and lure, promote,
and fire employees as they see fit. These powers give them direct influence
over the great majority of Americans who are dependent upon wages and salaries
for their incomes. They also give the corporate rich indirect influence over
elected and appointcd officials, for the growth and stability of a city,
state, or the country as a whole can be jeopardized by a lack of business
confidence in government.[56]
--[cont]--
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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