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This volume presents a network of social power, indicating that
theories inspired by C.Wright Mills are far more accurate views
about power in America than those of Mills's opponents.
Dr. Domhoff shows how and why coalitions within the power elite
have involved themselves in such policy issues as the Social
Security Act (1935) and the Employment Act (1946), and how the
National Labor Relations Act (1935) could pass against the
opposition of every major corporation. The book descri bes how
experts worked closely with the power elite in shaping the plansfor
a post-World War II world economic order, in good part realized
during the past 30 years. Arguments are advanced that the fat cats
who support the Democrats cannot be understood in terms of narrow
self-interest, and that moderate conservatives dominated
policy-making under Reagan.
At this crucial moment in American history, when voting rights
could be expanded to include all citizens, or legislatively
limited, this significantly updated edition of Who Rules America?
shows precisely how the top 1% of the population, who own 43% of
all financial wealth, and receive 20% of the nation's yearly
income, dominate governmental decision-making. They have created a
corporate community and a policy-planning network, made up of
foundations think-tanks, and policy-discussion groups, to develop
the policies that become law. Through a leadership group called the
power elite, the corporate rich provide campaign donations and
other gifts and favors to elected officials, serve on federal
advisory committees, and receive appointments to key positions in
government, all of which make it possible for the corporate rich
and the power elite to rule the country, despite constant
challenges from the inclusionary alliance and from the Democratic
Party. The book explains the role of both benign and dark attempts
to influence public opinion, the machinations of the climate-denial
network, and how the Supreme Court came to have an
ultraconservative majority, who serve as a backstop for the
corporate community as well as a legitimator of restrictions on
voting rights, union rights, and abortion rights, by ruling that
individual states have the power to set such limits. Despite all
this highly concentrated power, it will be the other 99.5%, not the
top 0.5%, who will decide the fate of the United States in the
2020s on all the important issues.
At this crucial moment in American history, when voting rights
could be expanded to include all citizens, or legislatively
limited, this significantly updated edition of Who Rules America?
shows precisely how the top 1% of the population, who own 43% of
all financial wealth, and receive 20% of the nation's yearly
income, dominate governmental decision-making. They have created a
corporate community and a policy-planning network, made up of
foundations think-tanks, and policy-discussion groups, to develop
the policies that become law. Through a leadership group called the
power elite, the corporate rich provide campaign donations and
other gifts and favors to elected officials, serve on federal
advisory committees, and receive appointments to key positions in
government, all of which make it possible for the corporate rich
and the power elite to rule the country, despite constant
challenges from the inclusionary alliance and from the Democratic
Party. The book explains the role of both benign and dark attempts
to influence public opinion, the machinations of the climate-denial
network, and how the Supreme Court came to have an
ultraconservative majority, who serve as a backstop for the
corporate community as well as a legitimator of restrictions on
voting rights, union rights, and abortion rights, by ruling that
individual states have the power to set such limits. Despite all
this highly concentrated power, it will be the other 99.5%, not the
top 0.5%, who will decide the fate of the United States in the
2020s on all the important issues.
Almost all US cities are controlled by real estate and development
interests, but Santa Cruz, California, is a deviant case. An
unusual coalition of socialist-feminists, environmentalists,
social-welfare liberals, and neighborhood activists has stopped
every growth project proposed by landowners and developers since
1969, and controlled the city council since 1981. Even after a 1989
earthquake forced the city to rebuild its entire downtown, the
progressive elected officials prevailed over developers and
landowners. Drawing on hundreds of primary documents, as well as
original, previously unpublished interviews, The Leftmost City
utilizes an extended case study of Santa Cruz to critique three
major theories of urban power: Marxism, public-choice theory, and
regime theory. Santa Cruz is presented within the context of other
progressive attempts to shape city government, and the authors'
findings support growth-coalition theory, which stresses the
conflict between real estate interests and neighborhoods as the
fundamental axis of urban politics. The authors conclude their
analysis by applying insights gleaned from Santa Cruz to
progressive movements nationwide, offering a template for
progressive coalitions to effectively organize to achieve political
power.
Based on new archival research, G. Williams Domhoff challenges
popular conceptions of the 1930's New Deal. Arguing instead that
this period was one of increasing corporate dominance in government
affairs, affecting the fate of American workers up to the present
day. While FDR's New Deal brought sweeping legislation, the tide
turned quickly after 1938. From that year onward nearly every major
new economic law passed by Congress showed the mark of corporate
dominance. Domhoff accessibly portrays documents of the Committee's
vital influence in the halls of government, supported by his
interviews with several of its key employees and trustees. Domhoff
concludes that in terms of economic influence, liberalism was on a
long steady decline, despite two decades of post-war growing
equality, and that ironically, it was the successes of the civil
rights, feminist, environmental, and gay-lesbian movements-not a
new corporate mobilisation-that led to the final defeat of the
liberal-labour alliance after 1968.
Based on new archival research, G. Williams Domhoff challenges
popular conceptions of the 1930's New Deal. Arguing instead that
this period was one of increasing corporate dominance in government
affairs, affecting the fate of American workers up to the present
day. While FDR's New Deal brought sweeping legislation, the tide
turned quickly after 1938. From that year onward nearly every major
new economic law passed by Congress showed the mark of corporate
dominance. Domhoff accessibly portrays documents of the Committee's
vital influence in the halls of government, supported by his
interviews with several of its key employees and trustees. Domhoff
concludes that in terms of economic influence, liberalism was on a
long steady decline, despite two decades of post-war growing
equality, and that ironically, it was the successes of the civil
rights, feminist, environmental, and gay-lesbian movements-not a
new corporate mobilisation-that led to the final defeat of the
liberal-labour alliance after 1968.
This book critiques and extends the analysis of power in the
classic, Who Rules America?, on the fiftieth anniversary of its
original publication in 1967-and through its subsequent editions.
The chapters, written especially for this book by twelve
sociologists and political scientists, provide fresh insights and
new findings on many contemporary topics, among them the concerted
attempt to privatize public schools; foreign policy and the growing
role of the military-industrial component of the power elite; the
successes and failures of union challenges to the power elite; the
ongoing and increasingly global battles of a major sector of
agribusiness; and the surprising details of how those who hold to
the egalitarian values of social democracy were able to tip the
scales in a bitter conflict within the power elite itself on a
crucial banking reform in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
These social scientists thereby point the way forward in the study
of power, not just in the United States, but globally. A brief
introductory chapter situates Who Rules America? within the context
of the most visible theories of power over the past fifty
years-pluralism, Marxism, Millsian elite theory, and historical
institutionalism. Then, a chapter by G. William Domhoff, the author
of Who Rules America?, takes us behind the scenes on how the
original version was researched and written, tracing the evolution
of the book in terms of new concepts and research discoveries by
Domhoff himself, as well as many other power structure researchers,
through the 2014 seventh edition. Readers will find differences of
opinion and analysis from chapter to chapter. The authors were
encouraged to express their views independently and frankly. They
do so in an admirable and useful fashion that will stimulate
everyone's thinking on these difficult and complex issues, setting
the agenda for future studies of power.
"Class and Power in the New Deal" provides a new perspective on the
origins and implementation of the three most important policies
that emerged during the New Deal--the Agricultural Adjustment Act,
the National Labor Relations Act, and the Social Security Act. It
reveals how Northern corporate moderates, representing some of the
largest fortunes and biggest companies of that era, proposed all
three major initiatives and explores why there were no viable
alternatives put forward by the opposition.
More generally, this book analyzes the seeming paradox of policy
support and political opposition. The authors seek to demonstrate
the superiority of class dominance theory over other
perspectives--historical institutionalism, Marxism, and
protest-disruption theory--in explaining the origins and
development of these three policy initiatives. Domhoff and Webber
draw on extensive new archival research to develop a fresh
interpretation of this seminal period of American government and
social policy development.
The Corporate Rich and the Power Elite in the Twentieth Century
demonstrates exactly how the corporate rich developed and
implemented the policies and created the government structures that
allowed them to dominate the United States. The book is framed
within three historical developments that have made this domination
possible: the rise and fall of the union movement, the initiation
and subsequent limitation of government social-benefit programs,
and the postwar expansion of international trade. The book's deep
exploration into the various methods the corporate rich used to
centralize power corrects major empirical misunderstandings
concerning all three issue-areas. Further, it explains why the
three ascendant theories of power in the early twenty-first
century-interest-group pluralism, organizational state theory, and
historical institutionalism-cannot account for the complexity of
events that established the power elite's supremacy and led to
labor's fall. More generally, and convincingly, the analysis
reveals how a corporate-financed policy-planning network,
consisting of foundations, think tanks, and policy-discussion
groups, gradually developed in the twentieth century and played a
pivotal role in all three issue-areas. Filled with new archival
findings and commanding detail, this book offers readers a
remarkable look into the nature of power in America during the
twentieth century, and provides a starting point for future
in-depth analyses of corporate power in the current century.
Distinguished psychologist G. William Domhoff brings together-for
the first time-all the necessary tools needed to perform
quantitative studies of dream content using the rigorous system
developed by Calvin S. Hall and Robert van de Castle. The book
contains a comprehensive review of the literature, detailed coding
rules, normative findings, and statistical tables.
Distinguished psychologist G. William Domhoff brings together-for
the first time-all the necessary tools needed to perform
quantitative studies of dream content using the rigorous system
developed by Calvin S. Hall and Robert van de Castle. The book
contains a comprehensive review of the literature, detailed coding
rules, normative findings, and statistical tables.
Almost all US cities are controlled by real estate and development
interests, but Santa Cruz, California, is a deviant case. An
unusual coalition of socialist-feminists, environmentalists,
social-welfare liberals, and neighborhood activists has stopped
every growth project proposed by landowners and developers since
1969, and controlled the city council since 1981. Even after a 1989
earthquake forced the city to rebuild its entire downtown, the
progressive elected officials prevailed over developers and
landowners. Drawing on hundreds of primary documents, as well as
original, previously unpublished interviews, "The Leftmost City"
utilizes an extended case study of Santa Cruz to critique three
major theories of urban power: Marxism, public-choice theory, and
regime theory. Santa Cruz is presented within the context of other
progressive attempts to shape city government, and the authors'
findings support growth-coalition theory, which stresses the
conflict between real estate interests and neighborhoods as the
fundamental axis of urban politics. The authors conclude their
analysis by applying insights gleaned from Santa Cruz to
progressive movements nationwide, offering a template for
progressive coalitions to effectively organize to achieve political
power.
This book critiques and extends the analysis of power in the
classic, Who Rules America?, on the fiftieth anniversary of its
original publication in 1967-and through its subsequent editions.
The chapters, written especially for this book by twelve
sociologists and political scientists, provide fresh insights and
new findings on many contemporary topics, among them the concerted
attempt to privatize public schools; foreign policy and the growing
role of the military-industrial component of the power elite; the
successes and failures of union challenges to the power elite; the
ongoing and increasingly global battles of a major sector of
agribusiness; and the surprising details of how those who hold to
the egalitarian values of social democracy were able to tip the
scales in a bitter conflict within the power elite itself on a
crucial banking reform in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
These social scientists thereby point the way forward in the study
of power, not just in the United States, but globally. A brief
introductory chapter situates Who Rules America? within the context
of the most visible theories of power over the past fifty
years-pluralism, Marxism, Millsian elite theory, and historical
institutionalism. Then, a chapter by G. William Domhoff, the author
of Who Rules America?, takes us behind the scenes on how the
original version was researched and written, tracing the evolution
of the book in terms of new concepts and research discoveries by
Domhoff himself, as well as many other power structure researchers,
through the 2014 seventh edition. Readers will find differences of
opinion and analysis from chapter to chapter. The authors were
encouraged to express their views independently and frankly. They
do so in an admirable and useful fashion that will stimulate
everyone's thinking on these difficult and complex issues, setting
the agenda for future studies of power.
The Corporate Rich and the Power Elite in the Twentieth Century
demonstrates exactly how the corporate rich developed and
implemented the policies and created the government structures that
allowed them to dominate the United States. The book is framed
within three historical developments that have made this domination
possible: the rise and fall of the union movement, the initiation
and subsequent limitation of government social-benefit programs,
and the postwar expansion of international trade. The book's deep
exploration into the various methods the corporate rich used to
centralize power corrects major empirical misunderstandings
concerning all three issue-areas. Further, it explains why the
three ascendant theories of power in the early twenty-first
century-interest-group pluralism, organizational state theory, and
historical institutionalism-cannot account for the complexity of
events that established the power elite's supremacy and led to
labor's fall. More generally, and convincingly, the analysis
reveals how a corporate-financed policy-planning network,
consisting of foundations, think tanks, and policy-discussion
groups, gradually developed in the twentieth century and played a
pivotal role in all three issue-areas. Filled with new archival
findings and commanding detail, this book offers readers a
remarkable look into the nature of power in America during the
twentieth century, and provides a starting point for future
in-depth analyses of corporate power in the current century.
The New CEOs looks at the women and people of color leading Fortune
500 companies, exploring the factors that have helped them achieve
success and their impact on the business world and society more
broadly. As recently as fifteen years ago, there had only been
three women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and no African
Americans. As of July 2010, there had been 73 women, African
American, Latino, and Asian CEOs of Fortune 500 companies some
well-known, like Carly Fiorina of Hewlett Packard, and some
less-known. Richard L. Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff look at
these 'new CEOs' closely. Weaving compelling interview excerpts
with new research, the book traces how these new CEOs came to
power, questions whether they differ from white male Fortune 500
CEOs in meaningful ways, asks whether the companies that hired them
differ from other companies, and discusses what we can learn about
power in America from the emergence of these new CEOs. As Americans
continue to debate corporate compensation, glass ceilings, and
'colorblind' relationships, The New CEOs shares information
critical to understanding our current situation and looks toward
the future in our increasingly globalized world. Featured July 5,
2012 on The Society Pages: Social Science That Matters. Click here.
See The Society Pages Office Hours podcast here."
A fascinating strand of the human potential movement of the 1960s
involved the dream mystique of a previously unknown Malaysian
tribe, the Senoi, first brought to the attention of the Western
world by adventurer-anthropologist-psychologist Kilton Stewart.
Exploring the origin, attraction, and efficacy of the Senoi ideas,
G. William Domhoff also investigates current research on dreams and
concludes that the story of Senoi dream theory tells us more about
certain aspects of American culture than it does about this distant
tribe. In analyzing its mystical appeal, he comes to some
unexpected conclusions about American spirituality and
practicality.
G. William Domhoff presents a new neurocognitive theory of dreams
in his book The Emergence of Dreaming. His theory stresses the
similarities between dreaming and drifting waking thought, based on
laboratory and non-laboratory studies that show as many as 70 to 80
percent of dreams are dramatized enactments of significant waking
personal concerns about the past, present, and future. Domhoff
discusses a developmental dimension of dreaming based on the
unexpected laboratory discovery that young children dream
infrequently and with less complexity until ages 9-11-supported by
new findings with children who are awake that demonstrate the
gradual emergence of cognitive skills necessary for dreaming.
Domhoff's theory locates the neural substrate for dreaming in the
same brain network now known to be most active during
mind-wandering, and explains the transition into dreaming. Various
strands of evidence lead to the conclusion that dreaming does not
have any adaptive function, and is best viewed as an accidental
by-product of adaptive waking cognitive abilities. However,
cross-cultural and historical studies reveal that human
inventiveness has made dreams an essential part of healing and
religious ceremonies in many societies. Three chapters present
detailed critiques of other current theories of dreams. The final
chapter suggests how new and better studies of dreaming and its
neurocognitive basis can be carried out using recent technological
developments in both communications (e.g., smartphone apps) and
neuroimaging (e.g., near infrared spectroscopy). As one of the
first empirical and scientific treatments on dream research, The
Emergence of Dreaming will be of interest to psychologists,
cognitive neuroscientists, sleep researchers, and psychiatrists.
Diversity in the Power Elite is a provocative analysis of the
diversity that exists-and doesn't exist-among America's powerful
people. Richard L. Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff examine the
progress that has been made, and where progress has stalled, for
women, African Americans, Latino/as, Asian Americans, LGBTQ people,
and Jewish people among what C. Wright Mills called the "power
elite," or those with significant financial or political influence
in the U.S. The third edition of this classic text has been fully
revised and updated throughout. It highlights examples of profound
change, including the presidential election of Barack Obama, the
nation's first black president, as well as the growing acceptance
of LGBTQ people. And it also highlights the many ways that the
promise of diversity has stalled or fallen short-that the playing
field for non-white males and women is far from level. Filled with
case studies that illuminate deep research, the book reveals a
critical examination of the circles of power and discusses the
impact of diversity on the way power works in the U.S.
Diversity in the Power Elite is a provocative analysis of the
diversity that exists-and doesn't exist-among America's powerful
people. Richard L. Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff examine the
progress that has been made, and where progress has stalled, for
women, African Americans, Latino/as, Asian Americans, LGBTQ people,
and Jewish people among what C. Wright Mills called the "power
elite," or those with significant financial or political influence
in the U.S. The third edition of this classic text has been fully
revised and updated throughout. It highlights examples of profound
change, including the presidential election of Barack Obama, the
nation's first black president, as well as the growing acceptance
of LGBTQ people. And it also highlights the many ways that the
promise of diversity has stalled or fallen short-that the playing
field for non-white males and women is far from level. Filled with
case studies that illuminate deep research, the book reveals a
critical examination of the circles of power and discusses the
impact of diversity on the way power works in the U.S.
"The next thing the girl said was, 'I've never been near anyone
black except for my maid.' And I thought, I'm going to have
problems here."-Bobette Reed Kahn What were the feelings and
experiences of the young blacks from economically impoverished
backgrounds who in the 1960s were placed in white upper-class prep
schools? What do their current attitudes and achievements reveal
about the importance of race and class in America? In this
sensitive and engrossing book, a social psychologist and a
political sociologist report on the early graduates of A Better
Chance, a program designed to recruit and prepare minority students
for entry into exclusive boarding schools, elite colleges and
universities, and ultimately positions of power and prestige.
Zwegenhaft and Domhoff's book is a vivid testimony to the costs and
the rewards of this innovative attempt to transcend racial
barriers. As Zweigenhaft and Domhoff relate, these young men and
women faced difficulties in the dramatic transition from black
ghettos to the most exclusive boarding schools in the United
States. Yet most not only endured but flourished. We hear their
stories about the orientation programs they attended, their
experiences in prep schools and colleges, the overt and covert
forms of discrimination they faced, and the problems they
encountered when they went home again. They discuss the pressures
they felt, the friendships they made, the marriage partners they
selected, and the frustrations and gratifications in their
occupational lives. The question of the relative importance of race
and class in the United States is an ongoing controversy among
policymakers, educators, and social scientists. Zweigenhaft and
Domhoff's study sheds light on this debate-it concludes that while
the importance of class has increased in the past few decades, race
is still the paramount factor in the personal and social identity
of blacks.
The New CEOs looks at the women and people of color leading Fortune
500 companies, exploring the factors that have helped them achieve
success and their impact on the business world and society more
broadly. As recently as fifteen years ago, there had only been
three women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and no African
Americans. By now there have been more than 100 women, African
American, Latino, and Asian-American CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
Richard L. Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff look at these "new
CEOs" closely. Weaving compelling interview excerpts with new
research, the book traces how these new CEOs came to power,
questions whether they differ from white male Fortune 500 CEOs in
meaningful ways, asks whether the companies that hired them differ
from other companies, and discusses what we can learn about power
in America from the emergence of these new CEOs. As Americans
continue to debate corporate compensation, glass ceilings, and
colorblind relationships, The New CEOs shares information critical
to understanding our current situation and looks toward the future
in our increasingly globalized world. The paperback edition of The
New CEOs features a new Introduction and an updated comprehensive
list of new CEOs to date.
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