Elitism Vs Pluralism

As defined in our textbook “ The American Government and Politics in The New Millennium” on page 659 pluralism is “the view that competition and subsequent negotiation and bargaining among multiple centers of power is the key to understanding how decisions are made”. Also in the textbook on page 38 elitism is defined as “Those who have the most of what is valued in society.” Unlike pluralism, elitism consists of a few wealthy or educated members whereas pluralism consists of groups of powerful members.This is only one of the many fundamental differences between elitism and pluralism. In this essay I will be covering the other fundamental differences between the two as well as my opinion on which theory best describes American politics. Another

Considering that the elite are in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government that means that they are controlled by “the people”. Pluralism is diverse and made up of many different groups whereas the elite need the pluralist to hold their positions of power because they are “the people”. This is a major fundamental difference between elitism and pluralism. The last difference I am going to talk about is from the website “Yourarticlelibrary.com” from a article by Puja Mondal titled “Difference between Pluralist and Elitist Power Structure”. On the third point from each list of differences on elitism and pluralism Puja says that “ pluralism has symmetrical relations and elitism has asymmetrical relations.’ This means that the elite’s power is based more individually and the pluralists power is shared throughout members. When it comes to my opinion on which theory best describes American politics I am torn. One of the factors that make me lean more toward the elite theory are positions of which the elite

On page 37 Arthur .F. Bentley says “ some of the groups (pluralists) are considered to be “political” in that they compete with one another in attempt to get whatever it is they want from the government. In my opinion elitism and pluralism go hand and hand. Even though I have been pointing out the fundamental differences between the two theories I can't seem to find the one that will push me to decide one theory properly describe american politics. I am going to have to go with a mixture of both elitism and pluralism to best describe what american politics are to me. My reasoning behind this is I can't decide which theory holds the most political power in America. If the pluralist are the majority then it seems the elite can easily trick the pluralists into doing what they want using media and other assets they possess. On the other hand it seems that the pluralists have just as much power to persuade the elite because of the many powerful groups they posses and what comes with each