1) They are unprepared to acknowledge that any change short of revolution is a real

change.
2) There are crucial questions to be asked about the degree of compromise, and the extent
of the by the bourgeoisie in modern societies, and, for our purposes, about the extent to
which civil services play a concessions made 'brokerage' role in relation to these
concessions.
3) The study of these questions is inhibited if one takes a rigid position either on the
immutability of capitalism or on the irrelevance of the Marxist critique of the power
structure of industrial society.
4) The Marxists have been one of the main targets for attack by sociologists of the
'pluralist' school of thought.
5) Reference has already been made to Mosca's view that capitalist economic institutions
prevent the centralisation of power he regarded as inherent in a socialist system, but
Mosca's interpretation of the facts was remarkably close to that of a socialist theorist
like Miliband.
6) They might both agree, were they contemporaries, in interpreting American or British
society as capitalist, and only differ in that Mosca would have seen the power of the
capitalists as preventing the state becoming too powerful, while Miliband sees state
power and capitalist power as both parts of a uniform system of class domination.
7) But the modern 'pluralists' dispute the Marxist interpretation of the facts.
8) Theorists such as Aron,22 Lipset,23 Dahl 24 Dahrendorfs 25 and Galbraith 26 identify
other sources of power which they regard as important, such as the trade unions, the
political parties, and other voluntary organisations, which they see as counterbalancing
both the power of the state and the power of the capitalists.
9) In this way they have developed a theory of democratic elitism'27 an optimistic blend
of political sociology and political philosophy, which may be contrasted with the
conservative and pessimistic elitism of Mosca.
10) The pluralist' interpretation of the way in which western societies operate attempts to
provide an answer to the doubts expressed by Weber, Michels and Mosca on the
capacity of elected Politicians to control the bureaucratic machine.
11) The pluralist argument s that, in a democratic political system, elected politicians gain
support from powerful forces outside the direct political arena.
1. They might both agree, were they contemporaries, in interpreting American or British society
as capitalist, and only differ in that Mosca would have seen the power of the capitalists as
preventing the state becoming too powerful, while Miliband sees state power and capitalist
power as both parts of a uniform system of class domination. (45)
2. Reference has already been made to Mosca's view that capitalist economic institutions prevent
the centralisation of power he regarded as inherent in a socialist system, but Mosca's
interpretation of the facts was remarkably close to that of a socialist theorist like Miliband. (41)
3. Theorists such as Aron,22 Lipset,23 Dahl 24 Dahrendorfs 25 and Galbraith 26 identify other
sources of power which they regard as important, such as the trade unions, the political parties,
and other voluntary organisations, which they see as counterbalancing both the power of the
state and the power of the capitalists. (36)