ABSTRACT
The powers of ordinary men are circumscribed by the everyday worlds in which they live, yet even in these rounds of job, family, and neighborhood they often seem driven by forces they can neither understand nor govern. The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions to make decisions having major consequences. The elite who occupy the command posts may be seen as the possessors of power and wealth and celebrity; they may be seen as members of the upper stratum of a capitalistic society. Such an elite may be conceived as omnipotent, and its powers thought of as a great hidden design. The power to decide such national issues as are decided were shared in an absolutely equal way, there would be no power elite; in fact, there would be no gradation of power, but only a radical homogeneity.
