1. This chapter poses the question “Who rules the United States?” According to the power elite perspective, power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of people who control the major institutions of the state, the corporate economy, and the military. The powerful people who make up these institutions might have minor disagreements about policy, but for the most part they are unified in their interests and in owning and operating much of American society.

For this activity, choose an organization from the top 10 of the Fortune 500. Use the Internet to find the most up-to-date data. After selecting the company, go to its website to find infor­mation on its board of directors. A good place to start is the company’s annual report. For the most part, annual reports are made available on company websites, often on the “About Us” page. Finally, select two members from the company’s board of directors and answer the following questions:

• What are their racial or ethnic backgrounds?
• What are their educational backgrounds? Where did they go to school?
• What are their primary occupations?
• Do they have military backgrounds?
• Have they held formal positions in government?
• Do they have affiliations with other organizations? If so, which ones?
• Are they outspoken members of particular political parties?
• Do they belong to any specific social clubs?
• Are they often mentioned in news reports? What types of mentions?

Do you think the answers to these questions provide evidence for or against the power elite perspective? How might a group pluralist or elite pluralist respond to the limited evidence you have compiled here?

2. How can you use the clothes on your back to understand the nature of globalization? As has been explored throughout this book,    the things we consume say a lot about who we are and how we want others to perceive us. Rarely, however, do we pay attention to how these individual choices are situated within larger global processes. For this activity, choose five of your favorite articles of clothing and check their tags to see where they were made. Then do research on the companies and their production sites in these various countries. In what ways are the clothes you wear part of an increasingly globalized economy? What are the benefits of such an economy for you? What are the benefits and disadvantages for the workers producing the clothes? What are the consequences for each of the different countries?