ABSTRACT
This chapter explains each of several higher circles as offering candidates for the elite, and the author shall do so in terms of the major institutions making up the total society of America. American society today represents neither the one nor the other of these extremes, but a conception of them is none the less useful: it makes us realize more clearly the question of the structure of power in the United States and the position of the power elite within it. Accordingly, the problem of defining the power elite concerns the level at which we wish to draw the line. In a preliminary and minimum way, the chapter draws the line crudely, in charcoal as it were: 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.
