Elite

As European settlers began to colonize the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries, they quickly realized the economic potential of growing cash crops which were in high demand in Europe.

Owned by the planter class, plantations, large-scale farms where large numbers of enslaved Africans were held captive and forced to produce crops to create wealth for a white elite, emerged.

[5] According to the London School of Economics (LSE): "The dominant elite in the South before the Civil War were the wealthy landowners who held people in slavery, the so-called "planter class".

[6] As stated by the LSE, "this persistence in "de facto power" in turn allowed them to block economic reforms, disenfranchise Black voters, and restrict the mobility of workers.

[3][7] According to Mills, men receive the education necessary for elitist privilege to obtain their background and contacts, allowing them to enter three branches of the power elite, which are: According to Mills, the governing elite in the United States primarily draws its members from political leaders, including the president, and a handful of key cabinet members, as well as close advisers, major corporate owners and directors, and high-ranking military officers.

This group includes bureaucratic, corporate, intellectual, military, media, and government elites who control the principal institutions in the United States and whose opinions and actions influence the decisions of the policymakers.

[17] A later study of U.S. society noted demographic characteristics of this elite group as follows: [citation needed] In the 1970s an organized set of policies promoted reduced taxes, especially for the wealthy, and a steady erosion of the welfare safety net.

[22] The wide range of financial and social capital accessible to the power elite gives their members heavy influence in economic and political decision making, allowing them to move toward attaining desired outcomes.