People active in politics are elite in the sense that they play a larger role than most citizens. But there are also many American elections and so many places where political action can be blocked that no single elite can dominate. Business corporations, for example, are an importance interest group, but they only dominate client politics, and even then their influences can be overcome by entrepreneurial politics.
DO ELITES DOMINATE AMERICAN POLITICS?
Public opinion influences the making of U.S. policies through a number of channels. Elites in American business, education, communications, labor, and religion try to influence presidential decision making through several strategies. In foreign relations, for example, there are the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission that work to increase international cooperation and influence foreign policy through conferences, publications, and research. The members of the American elite establishment also exert influence through the general public by encouraging debate over foreign policy positions, publicizing the issues and using the media (Bardes, et al., 520).
Generally, the efforts of the president and the elites are most successful with the segment of the population called the attentive public. This sector of the mass public, which probably constitutes 10 to 20 percent of all the citizens, is more interested in foreign affairs than are most other Americans, and members of the attentive public are likely to transmit their opinions to the less interested members of the public through conversation and local leadership (Bardes, et al, 521).
Political scientists have developed a number of theories about American democracy one of which is the elite theory. Advocates of these theories use them to describe American democracy either as it is actually as they believe it should be. The elite theory holds that elites really govern the United States, in other words, is a sham democracy. Few people today believe it is a good idea for the country to be run by a priviledged minority. In the past, however, many people believed that it was appropriate for the country to be run by an elite (Bardes, et al., 521).
Elite theory argues that these few individuals wield power in America because they control its key financial, communications, industrial, and government institutions. In fact, elite theory appeals to many people, especially those who believe that wealth dominates politics.
ARE ELITES TOO INVOLVED IN POLITICS?
Domroff (ucsc.edu) point out that one who has the money or the business will no doubt join the elite force. The Founding Fathers were either landowners or merchants, while the leaders of the late 19th and early 20th century have railroad interests. The Roosevelts and Kennedys were old rich, while the Bush family has stakes in oil and finance. There is no doubt therefore that multinational firms, albeit working individually on their own issues, unite to form a clout over big issues, such as taxes, labor unions, and trade agreement, wage, and many more.
Furthermore, the lack of one big church, as in many European countries, or a big military to threaten the government, left the economic elite as the only power network in the U.S.
Members of the power elite maintain their influence—if not directly involvement—in policy making through these three processes: special interest process, the policy making process, and the candidate selection process.
The special-interest process involves achieving what the elites want when it comes to taxation and regulation. This process enables them to urge congressional committees, regulatory boards and executive offices to decide in their favor. In the policy-making process, the elites have their say in policy-planning. The candidate selection process, meanwhile, the power elite use their influence to support their candidate of preference.
The domination of the elites in the American politics and government is most felt in the presence of corporate lobbyists, backroom super-lawyers, and trade associations that serve as the voice of businesses and financial interest groups. Usually, influence is achieved by providing government with information, gifts to influential figures, insider dealing, personal influence, and, not least, high-paying salaries in the future after a government official leaves public service. There is no doubt that the power elites usually succeed, however, the issue comes out along the way when one firm or sector goes against the other. But no all are successful. For example in the 1970s, legislations were passed that improved auto safety standards, despite heavy objections from the car-making industry. Likewise, standards of water cleanliness prevailed despite the opposition from paper and chemical industries.
DID THE FRAMERS OF THE CONSTITUTION WRITE THE DOCUMENT
The Framers of the Constitution were undoubtedly elite. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison were landowners. John Jay was a scion of a wealthy merchant family, while Benjamin Franklin was a newspaper man and inventor. There were also manufacturers, shippers, land speculators, bankers and physicians in the house.
The framers of the constitution were distained democracy in its full essence. John Adams criticized Thomas Paine's book Common Sense for being "so democratical, without any restraint or even an Attempt at any Equilibrium or Counterpoise, that it must produce confusion and every Evil Work." Thomas Jefferson thought of the working class as "the panders of vice and the instruments by which the liberties of a country are generally overturned." He even believed that they have the "swinish multitude" do not have the capacity to govern themselves their passion more often than not overrule reason. John Adams opined that only the "the rich, the well-born and the able" should rule America since democracy was "the most ignoble, unjust and detestable form of government." Alexander Hamilton preached that there are divisions in society: the "rich and well born" and "the people." The masses, however, were "turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right." (vi.uh.edu/)
Although it is a misnomer, those who supported the Framers in their effort to ratify the Constitution have been called "federalists." Those who opposed the Constitution and favored the federal form of government provided by the Articles of Confederation have been misleadingly referred to as "anti-federalists." Most people, however, feared a national government so the Framers, in order to align themselves with those who responded well to the idea of a federation of states, began calling themselves federalists and their opponents anti-federalists. Not only did this disguise their intentions but the term "anti-federalist" made opponents of the Constitution seem obstructionist and negative. The elites formed a consensus that would react to many rebellions (black and white) and democratic tendencies among excluded people and it was their private meetings that led to the initiative of the Constitutional Convention. At every turn, the popular voice was absent, and elites were increasingly empowered. No special popular elections were held to select delegates. Instead, delegates to Convention were selected by state legislatures, who were already once removed from the limited electorate. Moreover, the Constitutional Convention had been called to amend the Articles only and any proposed changes had to be approved by all the states before they were adopted. But the Framers defied these legal stipulations, abandoned their authorization to amend the Articles only designed an entirely new centralized national government, inserted the Constitution that it should go into effect when ratified only by nine states. According to J.W. Burgess, the Framers "actually dd, stripped of all fiction and verbiage, was to assume constituent power, ordain a constitution of government and liberty and demand a plebiscite thereon over the heads of all existing legally organized powers. Had Julius or Napoleon committed these acts, they would have been pronounced coup d'etal" (Fresia, 49).
PLURALISM IN AMERICAN POLITIS
American society has become more pluralist now than what it has been. Modern pluralism started out as a reaction the concentration of sovereignty in the nation state. Its exponents argues that "intermediate solutions," such as churches, universities, and professional or economic organizations ought not to be regarded as dependent upon the will of a sovereigh authority, but should enjoy a degree of rightful autonomy (Self, 56).
The American model of democratic government, pluralist democracy, has a number of advantages over the majoritarian model, and these reflect the Founder's vision for America. Pluralist democracy requires government power to be dispersed in authority to be decentralized. According to the this model, democracy exists when government authority is divided among multiple centers of power that are open to interests of various groups--for example, labor versus management, farmers versus food stores, coal companies versus environmentalists. Groups like these compete against each others in a pluralistic society (U.S. Department of State, 12).
The dispersion of authority in pluralist theory prevents government from taking hasty, possibly imprudent action, but it also can prevent any action if important power centers disagrees. Although decentralization of power characterizes American government, some institutional features tend to centralize power, enabling government to act even while lacking universal agreement on policy (Janda, Berry, Goldman, 41).
References
Bardes, Barbara, Mack Shelley and Steffen Schmidt. American Government and Politics Today: The Essentials. Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Education, 2007.
Domhoff, G. William. The Class-Domination Theory of Power. Retrieved from: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/class_domination.html
Fresia, Gerald John. Toward an American Revolution: Exposing the Constitution and Other Illusions. Cambridge MA: South End Press.
Janda, Kenneth, Jeffrey Berry, Jerry Goldman. The Challenge of Democracy: Government in America, 2008 Update Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.
Mancur, Olson, Jr. Designing Institutions. In Kernell, Samuel and Steven S. Smith. Principles and Practice of American Politics: Classic and Contemporary Readings 5th ed. Los Angeles: Sage.
Olson, Mancur. The Logic of Collective Action. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1965. Self, Peter. Political Theories of Modern Government (Routledge Revivals). Oxon: Routledge, 1985.
The History They Didn't Teach You in School--an occasional series. September 17th, 1787, U.S. Constitution adopted. Retrieved from: /pages/buzzmat/htdisconst.html
U.S. Department of State Bureau of International Information Programs. Snapshot USA. U.S. Department of State, June 2006.
