ABSTRACT
Who Rules America? is an analysis of power, and so it begins with an examination of the most powerful private organizations in the United States and why they are powerful. These are the great corporations and banks. The chief officers and directors of the largest American corporations and banks form an interwoven group of friends and acquaintances, or acquaintances of acquaintances, who know each other as members of boards of directors, business associations, policy groups, country clubs, neighborhoods, or as graduates of a select list of boarding schools and universities that attract the wealthy. Domhoff calls them the corporate community. They are a community because their backgrounds, organizational connections, and similar beliefs bind them together.
