C Wright Mills Summary

C. Wright Mills was the sociologist that believed that knowledge was the crucial element to social change. He was hugely influential radical, and social theorist. C. Wright Mills was a social conflict theorist who argued that the majority of power is being held by a few individuals within the political, military and corporate realms. And these few individuals make decision that resounded through all American lives. On the other hand, he was a partisan of the idea that the society needed to change and change would come through those who had knowledge and use it properly. And critical thinking would be the means of obtaining this crucial knowledge. Thus he uses to create what he called the Sociological Imagination.
Mills wrote The Power Elite to identify certain individuals as the “National Upper Class”. They own most of the country’s wealth, runs its banks and corporations, are in control of the universities and mass media, and staff the highest ranking positions within government and courts. An example of high hierarchy of power, is the imaginary triangle with the executive branch, military leaders, and corporate leaders at the top, legislatures, and local political leaders in the middle and then the average people, the everyday people at the bottom.
Mills further explain that

Issues, then, have to do to with the society and some elements within it; for example if you have one person who is unemployed and you look at that individual’s skills and abilities to try to resolve the problem. This means that the cause of unemployment is caused by something within the individual, however if you have fourteen million people unemployed in this beyond the individual and is now a social issue. This issue cannot be corrected by focusing on only the individuals but must be resolved by looking at the bigger social elements