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| Preface | |
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| Introduction: This Is the Ideal Historical Moment to Be Reading This Book | |
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| Class and Power in America | |
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| What Is a Social Class? | |
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| Social Class According to Social Scientists | |
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| Is There an American Upper Class? | |
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| Is the Upper Class an Economic Class? | |
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| What Is Power? | |
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| The Social Science View of Power | |
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| Three Power Indicators | |
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| What Do Other Social Scientists Think? | |
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| Here's the Plan | |
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| The Corporate Community | |
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| The Unexpected Origins of the Corporate Community | |
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| The Board of Directors | |
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| The Corporate Community Today | |
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| The Director Network as an "Inner Circle" | |
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| Strategic Alliances/Producer Networks | |
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| Is There a Separate Military-Industrial Complex? | |
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| The Incorporation of High-Tech Companies | |
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| The Corporate Lawyers | |
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| From Small Farms to Giant Agribusinesses | |
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| Small Business: Not a Counterweight | |
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| Local Businesses Form Growth Coalitions | |
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| Structural Power and Its Limits | |
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| The Corporate Community and the Upper Class | |
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| Prepping for Power | |
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| Social Clubs | |
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| The Feminine Half of the Upper Class | |
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| Dropouts, Failures, and Change Agents | |
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| Continuity and Upward Mobility | |
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| The Upper Class and Corporate Control | |
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| Where Do Corporate Executives Come from? | |
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| The Assimilation of Rising Corporate Executives | |
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| Class Awareness: A Capitalist Mentality | |
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| The Policy-Planning Network | |
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| An Overview of the Policy-Planning Network | |
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| Foundations | |
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| Think Tanks | |
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| The Mixed Role of Universities in American Power Conflicts | |
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| The Policy-Discussion Groups | |
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| The Committee for Economic Development: A Policy Group in Decline | |
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| The Business Council | |
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| The Business Roundtable | |
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| The Liberal-Labor Policy Network | |
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| The Power Elite | |
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| The Role of Public Opinion | |
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| The Opinion-Shaping Network | |
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| Striving to Shape Opinion on Foreign Policy | |
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| Trying to Shape Opinion on Economic Policies | |
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| Creating Doubt about Scientific Findings | |
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| Social Issues | |
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| The Role of the Mass Media | |
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| The Role of Public Opinion Surveys | |
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| The Enforcement of Public Opinion | |
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| When Public Opinion Can and Cannot Be Ignored | |
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| Parties and Elections | |
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| When and How Do Elections Matter? | |
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| Why Only Two Major Parties? | |
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| Republicans and Democrats | |
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| Party Primaries as Government Structures | |
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| The Critical Importance of Campaign Finance | |
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| The Obama Financial Network | |
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| Other Corporate Support for Candidates | |
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| The Results of the Candidate-Selection Process | |
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| The Liberal-Labor Coalition in Electoral Politics | |
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| How the Power Elite Dominate Government | |
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| The Role of Governments | |
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| The Special-Interest Process | |
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| The Policy-Making Process | |
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| Appointees to Government | |
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| Is the Obama Administration Different? | |
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| Supreme Court Appointments | |
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| The Great Exception: Labor Policy | |
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| Why Do Business Leaders Feel Powerless? | |
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| The Limits of Corporate Domination | |
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| The Big Picture | |
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| A Critique of Alternative Theories | |
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| Why Is the Corporate Community So Powerful? | |
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| Potential Challenges to Class Domination | |
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| The Transformation of American Politics | |
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| Will the Obama Administration Challenge Class Domination? | |
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| Challenges to Class Dominance through Social Disruption | |
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| Appendix: Indicators of Upper-Class Standing | |
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| References | |
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| Index | |