Question

Which statement is true about the people considered to be part of the power elite?

A. They all were born in the same part of the country.
B. They hold powerful positions and can get others to do what they want.
C. They wear clothes that are expensive and stylish.
D. They were all once poor.

Answer 1

What is the Power Elite?

Answer 2

According to Mills, the eponymous "power elite" are those that occupy the dominant positions, in the dominant institutions (military, economic and political) of a dominant country, and their decisions (or lack of decisions) have enormous consequences, not only for the U.S. population but, "the underlying populations of the world." The institutions which they head, Mills posits, are a triumvirate of groups that have succeeded weaker predecessors: (1) "two or three hundred giant corporations" which have replaced the traditional agrarian and craft economy, (2) a strong federal political order that has inherited power from "a decentralized set of several dozen states" and "now enters into each and every crany of the social structure," and (3) the military establishment, formerly an object of "distrust fed by state militia," but now an entity with "all the grim and clumsy efficiency of a sprawling bureaucratic domain."

Importantly, and in distinction from modern American conspiracy theory, Mills explains that the elite themselves may not be aware of their status as an elite, noting that "often they are uncertain about their roles" and "without conscious effort, they absorb the aspiration to be ... The Ones Who Decide." Nonetheless, he sees them as a quasi-hereditary caste. The members of the "power elite," according to Mills, often enter into positions of societal prominence through educations obtained at eastern establishment universities like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. But, Mills notes, "Harvard or Yale or Princeton is not enough ... the point is not Harvard, but which Harvard?" Mills identifies two classes of Ivy League alumni, those initiated into an upper echelon fraternity or final club, such as Porcellian and Fly Club, and those who are not. Those so initiated, Mills continues, receive their invitations based on social links first established in elite private preparatory academies, where they are enrolled as part of antebellum family traditions. In this manner, the mantle of the elite generally passes through families.


Historically prominent families, such as the Kennedy family, form the "Metropolitan 400." Shown here are Rose and Joseph Kennedy in 1940.
The resulting elites, who control the three dominant institutions (military, economic and political) can be generally grouped into one of six types, according to Mills:

the "Metropolitan 400" - members of historically notable local families in the principal American cities, generally represented on the Social Register
"Celebrities" - prominent entertainers and media personalities
the "Chief Executives" - presidents and CEO's of the most important companies within each industrial sector
the "Corporate Rich" - major landowners and corporate shareholders
the "Warlords" - senior military officers, most importantly the Joint Chiefs of Staff
the "Political Directorate" - "fifty-odd men of the executive branch" of the U.S. federal government, including the senior leadership in the Executive Office of the President, sometimes variously drawn from elected officials of the Democratic and Republican parties but usually professional government bureaucrats

Answer 3

Well form what I read, B seems to fit quite well.