Overview Of Sociology: A Down-To-Earth Approach

Democracy is one of the words James Henslin (2014, p.51) lists among the ten core values of the United States that sociologist Robin Williams identified. In the description of this value, he discusses how it refers primarily to majority rule. However, does the majority actually rule, or has American democracy sold out to capitalistic America? Through application of the conflict perspective, an apparent relationship is made between a select group of those who own the means of production and the mass of those who don’t, where those who do own this means exploit their power for personal gain and shift American democracy to oligarchy. In Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach, James Henslin illustrates a model proposed by C. Wright Mills that shows

One possibility is the iron law of oligarchy; “Robert Michels’ term for the tendency of formal organizations to be dominated by a small, self-perpetuating elite.” (Henslin, 2014, p.184) This, of course, is just a tendency, and in some instances a group may be able to avoid becoming an oligarchy. However, in referring back to C. Wright Mill’s model, the conflict perspective is headed by an elite group which will already start the pendulum swinging towards an oligarchy. Robert Michel illustrated his law by evaluating political parties. Through this he concluded, “Structural forces, or more precisely, the ‘technical indispensability of leadership’, push parties, like any other large-scale organization that has moved out of amateurishness, toward oligarchy.” (Korom, 2015, p.364) The necessity of leadership is then shown to be a driving factor of why organizations, especially complex ones, tend towards an oligarchy. This thought similarly relates to sociologist Gaetano Mosca’s argument of the how conflict causes social stratification because leadership positions have to be filled, which causes inequality, and, due to the self-centered nature of human beings, people will seize power and use it for their benefit (Henslin, 2014, p.237). The power elite’s position allows them to perpetuate social stratification and keep their oligopolistic hold on U.S. power, especially with corporate America shaping U.S. political policy to fit their capitalistic