"Within each of the big three, the typical institutional unit has become enlarged, has become administrative, and, in the power of its decisions, has become centralized. Behind these developments there is a fabulous technology, for as institutions, they have incorporated this technology and guide it, even as it shapes and paces their developments" (The Power Elite, 1956, p. 7).

"The economy--once a great scatter of small productive units in autonomous balance--has become dominated by two or three hundred giant corporations, administratively and politically interrelated, which together hold the keys to economic decisions" (The Power Elite, 1956, p. 7).

"The political order, once a decentralized set of several dozen states with a weak spinal cord, has become a centralized, executive establishment which has taken up into itself many powers previously scattered, and now enters into each and every cranny of the social structure" (The Power Elite, 1956, p. 7).

"The military order, once a slim establishment in a context of distrust fed by state militia, has become the largest and most expensive feature of government, and, although well versed in smiling public relations, now has all the grim and clumsy efficiency of a sprawling bureaucratic domain" (The Power Elite, 1956, p. 7).

"In each of these institutional areas, the means of power at the disposal of decision makers have increased enormously; their central executive powers have been enhanced: within each of them modern administrative routines have been elaborated and tightened up" (The Power Elite, 1956, p. 7).