They Rule the World
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A shadowy organization is in power, and it's made up of the very, very rich.
By Reviewed by Anne-Marie Slaughter
Anne-Marie Slaughter is dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton and author of "The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World."
Sunday, May 25, 2008; BW02
SUPERCLASS
The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making
By David Rothkopf
Farrar Straus and Giroux. 376 pp. $26
Go to www.theyrule.net. A white page appears with a deliberately shadowy image of a boardroom table and chairs. Sentences materialize: "They sit on the boards of the largest companies in America." "Many sit on government committees." "They make decisions that affect our lives." Finally, "They rule." The site allows visitors to trace the connections between individuals who serve on the boards of top corporations, universities, think thanks, foundations and other elite institutions. Created by the presumably pseudonymous Josh On, "They Rule" can be dismissed as classic conspiracy theory. Or it can be viewed, along with David Rothkopf's Superclass, as a map of how the world really works.
In Superclass, Rothkopf, a former managing director of Kissinger Associates and an international trade official in the Clinton Administration, has identified roughly 6,000 individuals who have "the ability to regularly influence the lives of millions of people in multiple countries worldwide." They are the "superclass" of the 21st century, spreading across borders in an ever thickening web, with a growing allegiance, Rothkopf argues, to each other rather than to any particular nation.
Rothkopf's archetypal member of the superclass is Blackstone Group executive Stephen Schwarzman, who is not only fabulously wealthy, but also chairman of the Kennedy Center, a board member of the New York Public Library, the New York City Ballet, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the New York City Partnership. These boards, along with the over 100 businesses Blackstone has invested in, the other business councils and advisory boards he sits on, and his Yale and Harvard education, mean that Schwarzman is only one or two affiliations away from any center of power in the world. Rothkopf actually traces the "daisy chain" of Schwarzman's connections through his board memberships -- linking him to Ratan Tata, one of India's richest men, former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo and many others. It is these links that create access that translates to influence and determines how the levers of power are pulled.
--MORE--
The Rothschild Octopus
Bilderberg Luminary To Select Obama's Running Mate
The Cabal: Power Concedes Nothing Without A Demand
A shadowy organization is in power, and it's made up of the very, very rich.
By Reviewed by Anne-Marie Slaughter
Anne-Marie Slaughter is dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton and author of "The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World."
Sunday, May 25, 2008; BW02
SUPERCLASS
The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making
By David Rothkopf
Farrar Straus and Giroux. 376 pp. $26
Go to www.theyrule.net. A white page appears with a deliberately shadowy image of a boardroom table and chairs. Sentences materialize: "They sit on the boards of the largest companies in America." "Many sit on government committees." "They make decisions that affect our lives." Finally, "They rule." The site allows visitors to trace the connections between individuals who serve on the boards of top corporations, universities, think thanks, foundations and other elite institutions. Created by the presumably pseudonymous Josh On, "They Rule" can be dismissed as classic conspiracy theory. Or it can be viewed, along with David Rothkopf's Superclass, as a map of how the world really works.
In Superclass, Rothkopf, a former managing director of Kissinger Associates and an international trade official in the Clinton Administration, has identified roughly 6,000 individuals who have "the ability to regularly influence the lives of millions of people in multiple countries worldwide." They are the "superclass" of the 21st century, spreading across borders in an ever thickening web, with a growing allegiance, Rothkopf argues, to each other rather than to any particular nation.
Rothkopf's archetypal member of the superclass is Blackstone Group executive Stephen Schwarzman, who is not only fabulously wealthy, but also chairman of the Kennedy Center, a board member of the New York Public Library, the New York City Ballet, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the New York City Partnership. These boards, along with the over 100 businesses Blackstone has invested in, the other business councils and advisory boards he sits on, and his Yale and Harvard education, mean that Schwarzman is only one or two affiliations away from any center of power in the world. Rothkopf actually traces the "daisy chain" of Schwarzman's connections through his board memberships -- linking him to Ratan Tata, one of India's richest men, former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo and many others. It is these links that create access that translates to influence and determines how the levers of power are pulled.
--MORE--