ABSTRACT
Mills was less concerned with criticizing or defending specific agencies of power or institutions of repression than with holding the leadership of the United States answerable to its proclaimed democratic values. Mills rejected a notion that one sector, such as the military or the economy, was a singular source of power, and upheld instead the interrelationship of polity, economy, and military, considering leadership in any of these sectors to yield power. The power structure in business has been altered through the specialization process, not through control of property. Social definitions of power and stratification for Mills derived basically from the European tradition in sociology. Mills specifically disowns conspiratorial notions of power manipulation, although he has been criticized on such grounds. Mills builds structures by means of architectural metaphors: top level, middle level, and public, mass level. Mills begins The Power Elite with a broad look at the "Higher Circles," intended to capture the present power atmosphere.
