Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Pierce William Luther
Title : The Nature of the Beast
Year : 1970

Link download : Pierce_William_Luther_-_The_Nature_of_the_Beast.zip

What is the Establishment? Why, that’s easy, you say: the Establishment is those persons, taken collectively, who run the System. But who are “those persons”? What are their names? What, if anything, do they have in common? How did they get into the Establishment in the first place? Is one born into it? Is it something like a fraternity or a secret society? Is great wealth a prerequisite for admission? Or is membership in the Establishment a prerequisite for owning great wealth in America? There is a great deal of confusion on these questions because of the sloppy but prevalent tendency to equate prestige and status - i.e., social rank - with power in our society. Things don’t necessarily work that way. It is clear that the one meaningful criterion for distinguishing members of the Establishment from non-members is power - power to make independent decisions which directly affect the operation of the System. In applying this criterion, however, it is essential to distinguish between apparent power, or power of a purely formal sort, and real power. ...