The 1950s in America

C. Wright Mills

by Thomas E. DeWolfe

Identification American sociologist, author, and social critic

C. Wright Mills maintained in his writings that increasingly affluent Americans led lives deprived of real power and meaning. This thesis addressed a widespread middle-class anxiety. His view that the real control of society was held by a “power elite” became a prevailing theme of the post-Marxian Left.

The son of an insurance executive, C. Wright Mills spent his youth in Texas. He received his masters degree in sociology from the University of Texas and went to Wisconsin for his doctoral work. Although Mills spent most of his adult life elsewhere, his flamboyant dress, large size, and abrasive manner seemed to forever brand him a Texan.

After a short stint at the University of Maryland, Mills taught at Columbia University in 1945 and remained there through the rest of his career. While Mills’s early writings pertained to sociological theory, his books concerning class differences (what he called “social stratification”) most influenced popular culture. Foremost among these were White Collar: The American Middle Classes (1951) and The Power Elite (1956).

Themes in Mills’s Writings

To Mills, social classes differed both in prestige and in power to influence society’s decisions. Like socialist philosopher Karl Marx, Mills saw stark differences between a controlling class of oppressors and everyone else. However, he described a type of oppression distinctly different from that of Marx. Marx predicted that monopolistic capitalists would increasingly impoverish the masses of people. Mills’s analysis, in contrast, suggested that the white-collar middle class was more numerous and more affluent than ever before but was deficient in both power and joy. Unlike the small entrepreneur of an earlier America, the white-collar worker neither owned his own business nor controlled his own product. A minute part of a giant organization, this worker’s economic contributions were fragmented into routine, repetitive efforts. His opinions counting for little, the white-collar worker suffered not from poverty but from meaninglessness.

A “power elite” held the real control in society. This elite consisted not of Marx’s rich capitalists but of a trinity of military commanders, managing directors of huge corporations, and nonelected political advisers. This elite generally functioned behind the scenes, and its members had similar backgrounds and enjoyed a unity of interest in retaining power. The elite made the big decisions of society such as initiating a war or an economic policy. The elite believed that public support could be secured later by manipulating the media.

Impact

Certain themes in Mills’s writings fit the temper of the times. His characterization of a newly affluent but powerless middle class reflected an anxiety highlighted by several other 1950-era writers. Even President Dwight D. Eisenhower expressed dismay over the unrestrained influence of the military-industrial complex nourished by Cold War fears.

More controversial was Mills’s characterization of an enduring power elite. The political Left, disillusioned by events that discredited Marxism, welcomed Mills’s revised views of the oppressors. Liberal critics, however, maintained that controlling democratic coalitions were not concentrated in any fixed power elite but tended to shift with events and the times.

Mills’s final writings during the early 1960’s grew more blatantly political as he tried to rally intellectual support for the “people’s revolution” in Cuba led by Fidel Castro . Felled by a heart attack in 1962, Mills did not live to see his influence upon protesting Vietnam-era students rallying against a seemingly intransigent, power-elitist “establishment.”

Further Reading

1 

Halberstam, David. The Fifties. New York: Villard Books, 1993. Chapter 35 highlights Mills’s influence within this decade.

2 

Horowitz, David. C. Wright Mills: An American Utopian. New York: The Free Press, 1983. A comprehensive account of the life and works of Mills.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
DeWolfe, Thomas E. "C. Wright Mills." The 1950s in America, edited by John C. Super, Salem Press, 2005. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=1950_488.
APA 7th
DeWolfe, T. E. (2005). C. Wright Mills. In J. C. Super (Ed.), The 1950s in America. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
DeWolfe, Thomas E. "C. Wright Mills." Edited by John C. Super. The 1950s in America. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2005. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.