[lbo-talk] Mills's Power Elite

[Mark S]

Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>Has anyone written illuminatingly on C. Wright Mills's The Power Elite? 
>Anyone here have any thoughts?
>
I don't know how illuminating it is but John Ralston Saul used Mills' ideas 
from The Power Elite in his discussion of the "cult of competition" in the 
West.  He contrasted Learned Hand's comments in the 1920s to Mills' 
observations in the 1950s (p. 506, Voltaire's Bastards).

I like Saul's observation that competition actually serves to eliminate most 
people from whatever is being competed over.

"Human dignity being what it is, we eliminate ourselves from the competition 
in order to avoid giving other people the power to eliminate us.  Not only 
does a society obsessed with competition not draw people out, it actually 
encourages them to hide whatever talents they have, by convincing them they 
are insufficient.  The common complaint that we have become spectator 
societies is the direct result of an overemphasis on competition."

M.

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