Abstract
It seems to be valid that the dispute about community power structure will end in the opposition of the competing conceptual schema of power elite versus pluralism. At the present stage of the dispute, the pluralist approach is getting the main current of those denying the dominance of a single elite and the pyramidical power structure, and perhaps the basis of its method is behavioral science. In this paper, I critically examine this approach from the viewpoint of the class approach. The Pluralistic power theory consists mainly of the following elements: (1) the establishment of political community, (2) the distribution and use of political resources, (3) the concept of power considered through participant behavior in decision-making and (4) the creed of democracy. At the bottom of these elements, the community theory founded on pluralistic social theory lies, and from it, the element (1) and (2) follow. Another crucial theory is the power theory from which (3) follows, and (4) is the political ideology underlying all elements.
But, several weak points are contained within this theory. Those are as follows: (1) the lack of consideration about relation between a community and the entire society, (2) the lack of structural analysis of community, (3) the preponderance of public agencies' power, (4) the non-conflict of power function etc. And those are basically result from the lack of class theory. To be exact political dominance in the pluralistic power theory is built on the illusion of voluntary concensus toward the common order among community membership. In view of historical development, there is rich soil today in America for the power-structure theory to be united with the class theory, and this is now developing. And yet, it is the question to be solved in the future.
