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Social Class and the Power Elite In considering who gets to the top of the power hierarchy, the American ideology suggests that there are no built-in impediments. With sufficient individual effort, the lowliest person can rise to the greatest heights. Any- one, therefore, can be the CEO of a major corporation or the owner of a broadcasting empire or even president of the United States. In the latter decades of the nineteenth century, an American writer, Horatio Alger, Jr., authored a hundred novels that almost perfectly reflected the belief that hard work, thrift, and honesty lead to economic and social success. The leitmotif of each of Alger’s books was the same: Even those of humble origins can make it to the top. Through adherence to the work ethic, along with a bit of luck, any adversity might be overcome. And in the Alger stories, the hero always conquers what seem to be overwhelming odds. Alger’s nov- els were aimed primarily at a juvenile audience, particularly young boys who, he hoped, would use the stories as inspiration for living a good life. From Alger’s novels came what has been called the Horatio Alger myth, essentially the idea that anyone, regardless of social standing, can reach the pinnacle of wealth and power with enough striving and perseverance. This has become a basic belief, held at least in the abstract, of Americans in explaining how peo- ple get to the top. To what extent does the idea of an essentially open system of elite recruitment hold true? The biographies of the past four American presidents are intriguing cases with which to explore this question. Former President Bill Clinton would seem to validate in some part the Horatio Alger myth. Rising from seemingly ordinary beginnings, neither poor nor rich, Clinton displayed many of the characteristics of an inspired overachiever. He excelled academically as an undergraduate at Georgetown University and won a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford. He went on to Yale Law School, where he again earned outstanding grades. Clinton was determined to succeed in the political world and before his thirtieth birthday had been elected attorney general of Arkansas. By the age of thirty-two, he was elected Arkansas’s governor, the youngest person ever to hold that office (Marannis, 1995). In 1992 he gained the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency and subsequently won the election despite imposing political obstacles (Allen and Portis, 1992). Barack Obama’s ascension to the presidency is, in a number of ways, even more, improbable than Clinton’s. Like Clinton, Obama lacked a privileged class upbringing and was raised in a nontraditional family. But, like Clinton, he excelled academically in high school and college. Obama’s mixed racial inheritance, of course, provided the most daunting obstacle to power not encountered by Clinton or any previously viable aspirant to the presidency. After attending Columbia University, Obama turned down more lucrative career opportunities and chose to work as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side for several years before entering Harvard Law School, where he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review. Following graduation, he shunned a prestigious judicial clerkship and returned to Chicago to practice civil rights law. At age thirty-three he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, serving for eight years before winning an overwhelming election to the U.S. Senate; four years later he was the forty-fourth U.S. president.Is Clinton’s and Obama’s rise to political power, however, typical of those who hold high office? The path followed by the forty-first and forty-third occupants of the White House, George H. W. Bush and his son George W. Bush, could not present a stronger contrast. Indeed, the Bushes’ stories personify the upper-class, patrician model. The elder Bush’s father was a U.S. senator who had been a partner in one of the largest Wall Street investment firms. Bush himself attended Phillips Andover, one of the most exclusive and prestigious prep schools, and then went on to Yale. Rather than joining his father’s investment firm, Bush senior started as vice president of a Texas oil- drilling equipment company, of which his father was a director. With financing from his uncle, he formed several oil companies and while still in his thirties became a multimillionaire. Having succeeded in business, he then turned to the political world (Phillips, 2004). The junior Bush, like his father, attended exclusive private schools and Yale University. His subsequent business ventures were financed in large measure by friends and relatives and were largely unsuccessful until he parlayed a $600,000 investment in the Texas Rangers baseball club into a $14 million profit when he sold his share of ownership (Kristof and Bruni, 2000; Ratcliffe, 1998). Through the accident of birth, there was certainly a high probability, if not a guarantee, that the Bushes would take their place among the wealthy and powerful. Which of these two types, then, typifies the quest for places in the power elite? The answer is a mixed picture. Although the linkage between wealth and power is usually very strong, there are nonetheless opportunities for those from less eminent origins who are determined and ambitious.

Questions:

Explain the Horatio Alger myth

What are the strengths of this theory?

What are the weaknesses? Do you agree with the theory? Why or why not?

should be 2 full paragraphs

Answer 1

The Horatio myth revolved around the “rags to riches" theme based on which Horatio Alger Jr. wrote his stories. In the late nineteenth century, this myth helped the population of the United States believe that anyone who could work hard could become rich. Individuals therefore possessed the capacity of being “self made" and had complete control over the outcome of events in their lives.

However, a drawback of this myth was an ignorance of the moral qualities of the heroes, while solely focusing on their success. Believers of the myth were also inclined towards assuming personal responsibility for every action, even those that were well beyond their control. In my view, this position of thought is dangerous because it can leave people highly frustrated when success doesn’t come their way.