In examining this argument, it may be helpful to return to an early statement of the pluralist position by Robert Dahl. In his critique of the ruling elite theorists, Dahl recognises that the test he proposes for discovering a ruling elite (examining cases involving key decisions in which elite preferences run counter to those of other groups) may not be appropriate in totalitarian dictatorships. The reason for this is that in these dictatorships ‘the control of the elite over the expression of opinion is so great that overtly there is no disagreement' (1958, p. 468). Dahl goes on to concede that, even in the United States,
a ruling elite might be so influential over ideas, attitudes, and opinions that a kind of false consensus will exist-not the phoney consensus of a terroristic totalitarian dictatorship but the manipulated and superficially self-imposed adherence to the norms and goals of the elite by broad sections of a community. (ibid.)