The American Business Elite in Historical Perspective

This paper replicates a classic study of the American business elite. The older study done a half-century ago, reported the composition of business leaders a century ago. I have" drawn a sample of business leaders today to discover how much the composition of the" American business elite has changed. As in the earlier study, the business elite is compared to a" sample of political leaders. I find that democratization of the business elite has progressed only" slightly in the past century, nowhere near as much as democratization of the political elite. " Despite the myriad things that have changed in America in the last century the business elite appears recognizably the same.