A final way to summarize the preceding arguments is to contrast them with leading claims (and counterclaims) previously made about the Power Elite.

Pluralist Counter- Case

Past Claim

As economies, populations and demand for ‘public services’ grow, making government a more complex and multilevel process, a Power Elite becomes impossible – the ‘chiefs’ are forced to delegate and cede big decisions to a ‘Power Plurality’ of bureaucrats, regional and local administrators, and corporations running privatized services.

Present Reality

Elites’ span of control (the number whose lives their decisions and non- decisions can materially affect) is not diminished by economic or population growth, and is increased by the concentration (via urbanization) of population, as well as by new techniques of communication and administration. ‘Higher circles’ can heighten their impact without increasing in size, by better routing and filtering the information flow they receive while lengthening and strengthening the channels of command that radiate from them.

Democratic Dilution

Past Claim

Power Elites are forced (in ‘modernity’) to yield to democratic control, sacrificing some of their power to avoid losing all of it.

Present Reality

Democratization strengthens the Power Elite's legitimacy without reducing the impact of its actions, and power to deflect the actions of the governed rather than strictly reflect their preferences.

Plutocratic Implosion

Past Claim

The Power Elite loses legitimacy when it ceases to discipline and defy the Wealth Elite, and succumbs to corruption or co- optation by it.

Present Reality

Separation of Power and Wealth Elites was only artificially and momentarily imposed in the post- war North Atlantic Treaty area, and has rarely arisen elsewhere at any time. The higher circles of the two usually overlap, a condition made sustainable while they maintain a creative tension between common and contrasting priority – priorities that delivers wider- population benefits – and undermined if circles’ interests either converge or diverge too far.

‘Elite- Distance’ Calibration

Past Claim

Public discontent with elites is proportional to the social and economic distance of the elite above the mass.

Present Reality

Elite distance is no obstacle to acquiescence of the mass and often helps to maintain it. Power and Wealth elites that stay a sufficient distance above the non- elite can be shielded by their unworldliness and the impossibility of accountability, whereas elites may be shot down or burnt up when they fly too close to those below.