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The Economic Elite and the Social Structure in Canada*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

John Porter
John Porter*
Affiliation:
Carleton University
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Extract

Elite groups, from the point of view of sociological theory, are composed of individuals who are the effective decision-makers and co-ordinators of the social system. These individuals occupy, as Professor Mills has put it, “the command posts” of the institutional hierarchies of modern complex society. Empirical studies of élite groups are concerned with at least three problems. The first is an attempt to discover the principles on which a social system allocates certain types of individuals to the élites, or positions of power, and thereby denies power to others. In all social systems the allocation of these roles is orderly, and supported by a widely held ideology. There need be no correspondence between the ideology held and the realities of power. In most social systems certain biological and social characteristics stand out as putting an individual in a preferred group for recruitment to positions of power. Power is not exercised by youth and rarely by women. Religion, ethnic affiliation, educational experience, social class and other social characteristics may form the basis of preference. Thus a study of preferred social types is an initial step in the analysis of the structure of power.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , August 1957 , pp. 376 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1957

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Footnotes

*

This paper is an extended version of one read at a conference of sociologists of eastern Canada at the University of Toronto, March 2, 1956. The author would like to acknowledge a grant-in-aid of research from the Canadian Social Science Research Council for the summer of 1955, and also the research assistance of Mrs. Beverley Teghtsoonian, formerly of Carleton University.

References

1 For an outline of the analytical model which is guiding the present research on élite groups, see Porter, John, “Elite Groups: A Scheme for the Study of Power in Canada,” this Journal, XXI, no. 4, 11, 1955, 498–512.Google Scholar

2 Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite (New York, 1956), chap. I.Google Scholar

3 Ibid.

4 See Porter, John, “Concentration of Economic Power and the Economic Elite in Canada,” this Journal, XXII, no. 2, 05, 1956, 199–220.Google Scholar The total number of directors and directorships dealt with in the present paper differs very slightly from those given in Tables I and II of the previous paper. The reasons for these corrections is that as biographical data were collected a few persons were considered to be more American than Canadian.

5 Who's Who in Canada, all years; The Canadian Who's Who, all years; Who's Who in America, various years; Who's Who (England), various years. The Canadian biographical dictionaries or their forerunners as far back as 1896 were consulted for information on parents and other relatives.

6 E.g. Financial Post; Monetary Times; Industrial Canada; Canadian Business. The biographical clippings in the library of the Ottawa Citizen were also used.

7 The 760 persons hold 1,070 (82 per cent) of the directorships held by Canadian residents in the dominant corporations, 188 (95.4 per cent) of the bank directorships held by Canadian residents, and 88 (65.6 per cent) of all the directorships in the ten largest Canadian life insurance companies.

8 Blyth, C. D. and Carty, E. B., “Non-Resident Ownership of Canadian Industry,” this Journal, XXII, no. 4, 11, 1956, 449–60.Google Scholar

9 Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Canada's International Investment Position, 1926–1954 (Ottawa, 1956).Google Scholar

10 Automobile manufacturing is frequently taken as an example of an American-controlled industry, but the senior executive of the Ford Motor Company of Canada was born in Canada, and the senior executive of General Motors of Canada is a naturalized Canadian who came to this country almost forty years ago.

11 There are a few persons who, after distinguished careers in élite groups other than economic, take senior executive positions with American firms operating in Canada. It can hardly be argued that they cease to have Canadian views and become mere agents of the United States.

12 Porter, “Concentration of Economic Power.”

13 Where gross assets were not known a very rough estimate was made.

14 The term “economic élite” in the analysis which follows will refer to the 760 persons. The proportion of directorships held by the various groups which are to be dealt with is that proportion which the 760 hold in the dominant corporations, the banks, and the insurance companies; that is, 1,070, 188, and 88 respectively.

15 Perhaps the best discussion of the juridical and psychological legitimacy of capitalism is still Arnold's, Thurman The Folklore of Capitalism (New Haven, Conn., 1948).Google Scholar

16 Of the fifty-eight members of this group who were born before 1890, there were twenty-three who had family connections in the élite, and of thirty-six who were born after 1890, there were fourteen. Of the fourteen born after 1900, eight had such kinship links. University training appears to be increasing in importance. Of the fifty-eight who were born before 1890, there were only twenty-three who had attended university and of the thirty-six who were born after 1890, there were twenty-four. Twelve out of the fourteen born after 1900 had been to university.

17 The proportion who start out at or near the top is of course much greater than 14.8 per cent, since those whose career patterns fall into the three professional categories already considered have been included in them. See the analysis of social origins below.

18 The proportion with higher education drops slightly if the foreign-born are included (56 per cent with university education, or 62.5 per cent if other post-high-school education is included). Of those born in the United States, 71 per cent had higher education, and of those born in the United Kingdom, 44 per cent. More than a third of those born in the United States were trained in engineering or science.

19 Sheffield, E. F., Canadian University and College Enrolment Projected to 1956 (Ottawa: D.B.S., Education Division, 1955)Google Scholar (mimeo.), prepared for symposium on “The Expansion of Enrolment, 1955–1956” at National Conference of Canadian Universities, Toronto, June 10, 1955. Full-time enrolment of men equalled about 11 per cent of men aged eighteen to twenty-one in 1950–1.

20 “It can, in fact, be argued on the basis of fragments of information at hand that we are utilizing to the full the talents of probably no more than one-third of our academically gifted young men and women.” Jackson, R. W. B. and Fleming, W. G., Who Goes to University? (Toronto: Ontario College of Education, 1956) (mimeo.), 2.Google Scholar Individual and family motivation to higher education is no doubt important also, but this motivation is probably another class variable.

21 For a revealing study of this situation within one industry in the United States, see Chinoy, Ely, Automobile Workers and the American Dream (New York, 1955).Google Scholar

22 Recent changes in the Quebec secondary school system may alter this situation. See Tremblay, A., Who Goes to University: French Canada (Quebec: Laval University, 1956) (mimeo.)Google Scholar; and Duffy, Robert, “A Revolution in Quebec School System,” Globe and Mail (Toronto), 10 16, 1956.Google Scholar

23 An estimate supplied by D.B.S., Education Division, Ottawa.

24 Although it is not possible to do so here, it would be interesting to follow the careers of, say, five-year cohorts from these distinguished schools, not only in the economic élite, but in others as well, to see what their playing-fields have contributed to Canadian development. Twenty-nine members of the economic élite attended Upper Canada College.

25 Census of Canada, 1951, I, Table 31; and X, Table 137. All the data on ethnic origins are taken from these Tables.

26 It is not as easy to identify French Canadians as current stereotypes would lead us to believe. Name alone is not a very sure indication of ethnic origin. Here a variety of criteria have been used, among them the following: parents' name, birth in Quebec, educational background, political affiliation, and membership in known French-Canadian philanthropic or service organizations. Many of the persons identified by these means are of course well known as French Canadians.

27 La Banque Canadienne Nationale and the Provincial Bank of Canada.

28 See McWilliams, Carey, A Mask of Privilege (Boston, 1948), 147 Google Scholar, on the Jew in “marginal business.”

29 One notable and recent exception is the Koerner family in British Columbia. They, however, transferred an already established business from Czechoslovakia to Canada. See Porter, McKenzie, “Leon Koerner's One-man Giveaway Program,” Maclean's, 08 4, 1956.Google Scholar

30 Clark, S. D., Church and Sect in Canada (Toronto, 1948).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Niebuhr, H. R., The Social Sources of Denominationalism (Hamdon, Conn., 1954).Google Scholar

32 See Josephson, M., The Robber Barons (New York, 1934), 317 ff.Google Scholar, and also Weber, M., “The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. Gerth, and Mills, (London, 1947), chap. XII.Google Scholar

33 Mills, , The Power Elite, 127.Google Scholar

34 Census of Canada, 1951, I, Table 37. All data on religious affiliation are taken from this Table.

35 If it can be assumed that Catholics are more likely to declare their religious affiliation than Protestants, the ratio of Catholics to non-Catholics in the economic élite given here is a fairly accurate measure of Catholic participation.

36 Max Weber saw this role of secular organizations emerging in the United States in the early part of the twentieth century: “… we are interested in the fact that the modern position of the secular clubs and societies with recruitment by ballot is largely the product of a process of secularization. Their position is derived from the far more exclusive importance of the prototype of these voluntary associations, to wit, the sects.” (From Max Weber, 311)

37 Only 7 of the 262 members of the House of Commons in 1953 failed to declare a religious affiliation. Canadian Parliamentary Guide, 1953 (Ottawa).

38 Even such “Liberal” corporations as Algoma Steel and Canada Steamship Lines have Conservatives on their boards. They are termed “Liberal” here because of the important part played by the late Sir James Dunn and the late Senator Fogo, who was also Chairman of the National Liberal Federation.

39 E.g., Glass, D. V., ed., Social Mobility in Britain (London, 1954).Google Scholar

40 To be absolutely correct it would be necessary to undertake a study of the concentration of economic power that existed a generation earlier. Only then would it be possible to say whether one élite was recruited from the other. Some of the corporations which in this study are classed as dominant were made dominant by the present generation. A man might take over a successful business from his father and make it into an industrial empire. Mr. Garfield Weston is a case in point. In considering the fathers of the economic élite some care was taken to distinguish between a large and powerful corporation and a successful business.

41 These facts also suggest of course that it takes longer for the man starting at the bottom to get to the top.

42 The criteria used in the selection of the 100 most powerful men were: first, the holding of a chief executive position and a directorship in one of the largest corporations; second, the holding of a directorship in more than one of the largest corporations; and third, a combination, which is frequent, of the first two criteria. The range of economic power held by these 100 top men can be gauged from the fact that although they constitute only about 10 per cent of the entire economic élite of 985 persons, they hold 324 (24.8 per cent) of the directorships held by Canadian residents in the dominant corporations; 59 (or 29 per cent) of all the directorships in the nine chartered banks; and 31 (or 23 per cent) of all the directorships in the ten largest life insurance companies.

43 This number does not include those holding governorships of colleges and schools within universities.

44 One important aspect of honorific roles has already been dealt with by Professor Ross in her studies of organized philanthropy. See Ross, Aileen D., “Organized Philanthropy in an Urban Community,” this Journal, XVIII, no. 4, 11, 1952, 474–86Google Scholar; and “The Social Control of Philanthropy,” American Journal of Sociology, LVIII, no. 5, 03, 1953, 451–60.Google Scholar

45 Total club memberships were taken from Canadian Almanac and Directory for 1954 (Toronto). The percentages given are of course approximate.

46 Seeley, John R., Sim, R. Alexander, and Loosley, Elizabeth W., Crestwood Heights (Toronto, 1956), 295.Google Scholar

47 See Homans, George C., The Human Group (New York, 1950).Google Scholar

48 See the discussion by Aron, R., “Social Structure and the Ruling Class,” British Journal of Sociology, 03, 1950.Google Scholar