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arildno
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She doesn't have to. GD is the place for bald assertions and unfounded allegations.
Not any more; merkins are now available at the PF store.arildno said:GD is the place for bald assertions
alexandra said:Joel, are you talking to yourself now? :rofl: Sorry for not responding earlier. I was sort of worrying about having sabotaged this thread completely - but I guess people who were going to respond to the original question have already done so now, so maybe it's ok to keep talking about this new topic here..?
Mills, Dahl and the other elite theorists are not Marxist - well, not according to my understanding of Marxism, or according to any of the critiques I have read of elite theory. Elite theory essentially separates economic domination from political rule, while Marxist theories see economic power as an integral part of the political process. There are various criticisms of elite theory, one of which you have included in your quote (this criticism applies to Dahl’s idea that:
A general Marxist criticism of elite theories is that they cannot identify the underlying basis of political power; they tend to obscure reality rather than revealing it.
Hmm, I see that one of the URLs you provided - http://www.politicalscience.utoledo.edu/faculty/davis/IGelite.htm - describes Marx as an elite theorist; very odd – I’ve never come across such a classification before (and it doesn’t make sense to me).
PS: If you’re interested, here’s a website with information about some key sociological theorists/theories: http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/%7Elridener/DSS/INDEX.HTML . Unfortunately, neither Mills nor Dahl are listed there (but Marx and Pareto are). A google search also brought up this interesting page that briefly outlines Mills’ and Dahl’s theories (scroll down the page to the section entitled ‘The State’): http://thunder1.cudenver.edu/sociology/introsoc/CUOnlineRevise/UnitNotes/Week10.html
See post #90 herearildno said:Well, you've got more use for a merkin than I have, whatever a merkin is.