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The Age of Recreation via the
Emancipation of Humanity from the Machinery of Economy
via the "ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY"
Powered by Algae & GeoThermal Energy
ROBOTISM© Will Succeed for PRECISELY the Reasons Communism Failed...
...People Intelligently CHOSE to NOT Work as Human-Robots under Communism,
real ROBOTS will have no such choice under ROBOTISM©
Summary:
Real money
is the fairest, fastest, best way
to build The Robotic Wageless Economy©
Paper money will only
keep people in bondage
and thus delay real robots from freeing them.
and thus delay real robots from freeing them.
Real vs. Fake People, Progress, Money
If you are like me, you want real
answers and real solutions to
challenges,
lasting solutions, that with today's technology are
more than
possible, they are just begging to deliver their goods
to real
people in reality, not some far off promise like some
"FREE Pizza
Tomorrow" sign in a window: Always True?,
Yet never
Delivered !!! or in the case of Paper
Money: "Promise
to Pay
Bearer on Demand", when with Real Money, i.e. Gold Coin,
you are
already PAID the moment you have it in hand !!!
Real
Money is neither good nor evil, it just is, yet,
in
that sense, it is very good indeed, just like our existence,
and for good reason, most kinda like both, as both are real,
yet not quite the same without the other, until The RWE© rolls
out, making the one unnecessary, and the other bliss for all humans.
Ironically, and profoundly, Real Money's only purpose
is to make itself unnecessary by manifesting The RWE©
that is why it is vital that only Real Money be used until then, for without it,
the custom fit for humans, perfectly ergonomic RWE© cannot manifest, simply
due to forgetting that if you do not treat human's well on the way, you will never
get there for THEM., i.e. some other reality will be created, perhaps not at all what
we want, i.e. the OTHER kind of Robotics.
Let's keep everything in perspective after all, everything must be for the betterment of all humankind.
that sense, it is very good indeed, just like our existence,
and for good reason, most kinda like both, as both are real,
yet not quite the same without the other, until The RWE© rolls
out, making the one unnecessary, and the other bliss for all humans.
Ironically, and profoundly, Real Money's only purpose
is to make itself unnecessary by manifesting The RWE©
that is why it is vital that only Real Money be used until then, for without it,
the custom fit for humans, perfectly ergonomic RWE© cannot manifest, simply
due to forgetting that if you do not treat human's well on the way, you will never
get there for THEM., i.e. some other reality will be created, perhaps not at all what
we want, i.e. the OTHER kind of Robotics.
Let's keep everything in perspective after all, everything must be for the betterment of all humankind.
With
the proper technology roll out via patient, sober leadership,
never mind
whether you, your neighbor, or the CEO of Walmart
understands
it yet, for that day may never come at the same time
for
everyone, we can solve every challenge facing us with the proper
technique
& knowledge, i.e. Technology: then there will be
plenty of
"time" later for everyone to "understand" it, point is, at
least you
will be here to have the potential to understand it.
Now a
whirlwind discussion of some of our biggest challenges facing
us, which
can each be solved in the blink of an eye, if enough
people
understand fast enough, everyone else can be filled in later
as their
curiosity leads them.
Abuse
of Seignorage {definition: Privilege of
Nations to Print Money and Flags of convenience etc.}
PAPER MONEY's ROLE in Delaying
REAL Progress
The
whole notion of paper money is problematic, multinational or otherwise.
- Money = Medium of Exchange
When money has intrinsic value, i.e. it does not just simply represent value, but is itself valuable, it goes without saying that the holders of such real money cannot have it devalued nearly as easily as those holding even the best paper money paper money can buy !!!
That being said, need we say anymore ?
There should not be different "brands" of paper money, national or otherwise, they are all tainted, manipulable, but not gold, gold is gold is gold, no matter whose face is emblazoned on the coin!
Not only should there not be different national currencies, there should not be paper currency of any kind, only gold coins of regulated weight and composition. [other precious metals are fine too, think intrinsic value, requires no trust] As for notes fixed to gold, the temptation is too great to keep the ratios fixed, they have never remained fixed, always slipped, always.
With gold, trust in no person is required after a transaction using gold as the medium of exchange has been made, the gold's value will fluctuate only based on the availability of gold itself, not the whims of those with ability to print up willy nilly oodles of more paper currency.
People who inanely argue that if there is not enough gold, economic activity will slow to a halt are just plain silly, perhaps even disingenuous, and they know it: the value of whatever gold there is available will simply rise, which is a good thing, not bad, free market will still function, and best of all, no one's savings, if in gold, will be devalued. That a Gold Standard was the cause of economic trouble in the past is one of the biggest lies of all time, and only served to remove gold from the hands of the pliant common folk, a gargantuan theft which continues unabated.
People need a reason to save, be frugal, efficient and sober in all dealings, and money that cannot easily lose its value due simply to the whim of coordinated action by some humans is crucial to that end. As real as your money is, is as real as you are some feel.
Unless you have this correct premise, one can spin any kind of complex story one wants, attempting to overflow the buffers of one's readers to the point they forget the premise and agree with your points out of sheer exhaustion somewhere in the middle, via endless comparisons of permutations of the same faulty premises re: the numerous paper currencies' relationships with each other, all rubbish, figuratively and actually !
Unless you can hold a continuous logically connected series of thoughts from beginning to end, you can be convinced of anything, including that paper money is anything but a crude parlor trick.
Paper money is almost as bad as electronic money. A regression of virtual money. All theft is based on fraud. Paper money is a lie and requires trust that just does not exist. It says I am worth more than the paper I am printed on. Cashless is even more dependent on trust, whereas Gold is Gold, and is itself worth something as a material of remarkable usefulness.
Electronic money is even worse than paper money: there is no way to know how much there really is out there, almost like paper money, both of which can be created out of thin air, unlike gold, but with the Electronic money's added danger of it not being possible to make a run on a bank if there is nothing physical to demand, i.e. not even paper money !!!
Then the only way to restore equilibrium after the type of fraud possible in a cashless society is usually war, since things can become so out of whack when even the run on banks mechanism is gone, an implicit result of cashless. And lots of unhappy ripped off people are better done away with then dealt with as the tragic rationalization goes, and has often been the solution historically, aka wars to reduce the population, all other excuses as cover for this simple fact.
Now contrast cashless with wageless, and you will really begin to see that all forms of money, even gold, are really only a way to organize matter beneath those creating the particular monetary system in question, i.e. those first issuing "money" in whatever form, and that a wageless economy where all work is performed by robots and computers is where we are headed, and that what we have today is a form of it, but a brutal form where real breathing people are turned into robots by the issuers of paper money !!!, when real robots would be so much more, shall we say, humane and sensible to use than real humans as robots !!!
Forex Not Possible with Real Money
The whole notion of 4X itself is flawed because it is a leak in the system, where differences are exploited, and only those with reach across multiple regions can reasonably exploit such differences. One can argue that all such exploitation eventually brings progressive equilibrium, but in so saying you have admitted that exploitation is part of that "progress".
Besides, those addicted to such easy money, will and have always endeavored to maintain the differences intentionally via pseudo-representative "governance" commandeered by extra-governmental international mechanism keeping exploitable differences in place, milking the differential, just as one does with Ocean Thermal Energy, Geothermal Energy, the Hegelian Dialectic, thereby remaining in the above the fray position from which to cherry pick indefinitely. Why should this situation EVER change unless we provide a better way ?
Before we had the robotic
technology we now possess, many of these arguments and "peculiar ways
of doing things" may have made some sense in that there was no better
way to achieve "progress", but with the level of progress thus far
achieved, ironically in large part via exploitation, it is now possible
to exploit only inanimate
matter, i.e. robots and computers made from
inanimate matter and possessing no will of their own, as hard as it is
for those accustomed to exploiting humans to admit this, it is
nevertheless true that all such exploitation of contrived differences
enforced on humans is now no longer
"necessary", and the big concern now
is how will those who took the status quo to be ordained, how will they
now behave knowing there is a better way, and will they help lead the
transition to "The Robotic Wageless Economy©
More on the interesting concept of a wageless robotic economy that we are hearing more and more about, can be found here: http://RoboEco.com/CFR
In summary, "The Robotic Wageless Economy©
If you feel you can help write this piece more clearly, or would like to help out in other ways or simply wish to share your thoughts:
Please write us: sysop@TeamInfinity.com
Thanks, Be well.
Cheers !!!
{ What you just read was in response to what you are about to read from the CFR, only the link is included, so please follow the link to read the honorable Benn Steil's most excellent piece which in part inspired the above response to it which you just read: }
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/
==========================
If you could spend the rest of your life, with no end in sight, doing whatever you wanted to do, being whatever you wanted to be, for as long as you want and with as much variety as you like, how would you conduct yourself, how would it vary from what you are doing right now, and why aren't you living that way now, if you aren't, and if you are, what do you see as the best way to continue, and how would you like the world to change to support or enhance your ability to do so without restricting anyone else's ability to do the same ? How could crime even exist ?
Look
@ what we found in the preface of a book from 1988...
But,
before reading Swami Vishnu-devananda's
1988
preface, do
you think it is possible
there
already may be significantly more advanced
implementation
of Robotics than most are aware of:
that
it is being kept from the 'public' because
with
such
technology, the 'public' may
no longer itself even
be
necessary, and if
the public were to catch wind of
such
advanced Robotics, that the public would say,
"Hey,
wait a minute, what's the big idea, what are we toiling
away for when there are robots that can do all this mundane
work, and we could be free like the elites, and yes we
would
know what to meaningfully
do with our free time, if we
had
some, thank you very much" ?
In
other words, could it be that there already exists
incredibly
sophisticated Robotics, far beyond what is
depicted
in even the most technical press, that is being
secretly
embargoed until after most of the current
'crop' of humans, ironically used as Robots
in
essence
to generate the wealth to fund & lay the
technological
ground work for the secret embargoed
Robotic
systems which these workers, like the builders
&
architects of Taj Mahal, Pyramids etc will
never
enjoy the benefits of, passes on ? Could it be
the
holders of this secret knowledge are waiting for most
of
this generation to pass on before unveiling the
true
progress made ?
Just asking the question implies it is
possible, but
now
that you are aware, either way, together we can
make
sure the promise of understanding the rules
of the universe will lead to everyone's benefit.
Paradoxically
Rules create Freedom, as long as they
are
indeed rules of what some refer to as the
Creator
of the Universe, i.e. the real deal, and not
something
posing as same, knowingly or not:
ignorance
is not an excuse, neither are good intentions
alone
sufficient. All systems are defined by, and in
fact
inseparable
from their rules.
By
fully understanding the rules that govern matter,
matter can
be subjugated to our will/spirit in real time
vs. subjecting human's
wills to other human's wills due
to
a lack of precision & understanding of the aforementioned
rules which historically has been smoothed
over by abuse
of other human's rights
to exercise their freewill so that
others not as easily forced may exercise
theirs, when using
will-less Robots instead makes so much
more sense, agreed ?
Preface
to the 1988 Edition
- Swami Vishnu-devananda
As
I write this preface to the new edition of The
Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga, humanity is
plunging
deeper and deeper into crisis, yet a bright
future
awaits. The transition between the 20th and
21st
centuries may bring us to an unprecedented
technological
paradise.
The door
is opening to an age of supercomputers to
help organize our complicated society and
modified
ecology; superconductors to minimize
energy waste; and
robots to perform work not fit for humans,
thereby
increasing our leisure time and life spans.
New
medical solutions will possibly arise to control
AIDS
and eliminate other terrible diseases. A time
may
come soon when we will be growing vegetables in
space
stations as well as in our houses, or we may
find
ourselves migrating to other planets, as the
migrated
to new worlds.
Yet,
we are still unable to deal with our minds. The
world
crisis is but a reflection of the chaotic state
of
the collective consciousness. The most positive
action
we can perform to contribute to the momentous
task
of bringing our planet back into balance is to
start
changing ourselves.
Positive,
focused thoughts are much more powerful than
negative,
confused thoughts. No external technology
can
control surging emotions and imaginations. No
type
of alcohol, drugs (whether tranquilizers,
sleeping
pills or wake-up pills), or other such
instruments
can hope to offer a long-term solution to
epidemic
mental weakness. These chemicals destroy not
only
bodies and minds of the users, but also those of
their
offspring, creating genetic disturbances and
unbalancing
mental vibration. Real peace comes only
to
those who can control the body and mind with proper
self-discipline.
I
have titled this book The Complete Illustrated Book
of
Yoga because Yoga is a complete science of
self-discipline.
Yoga balances, harmonizes, purifies,
and
strengthens the Body, Mind and Soul of the
practitioner.
It shows the way to perfect Health,
perfect
mind control, and perfect peace with one's
Self,
the world, nature and the Creator. Millions of
people
have begun to practice Yoga through the
application
of the simple time-tested techniques
presented
in this book. Though the scientific terms
and
examples used to explain the theory of Yoga have
been
designed for the modern reader, I have been
religiously
true to the ancient teaching of Hatha Yoga
as
well as other forms, such as Kundalini Yoga, Raja
Yoga,
and Jnana Yoga. I have invented nothing new,
only
presented this perfect science of
self-development
in a form comprehensible for an
analytic-minded
era.
....
Yogis,
however, say that we were not born merely to be
subject
to pain and suffering, disease and death.
There
is a far greater purpose to life. But the
spiritual
investigation of life's purpose requires a
keen
intellect and strong will, the products of a
healthy
body and mind.
For
this reason, the ancient sages developed an
integral
system to ward off or retard the decaying or
catabolic
process, and to keep the physical and mental
faculties
strong. By closely observing the life-style
and
needs of the modern men and women of this planet I
have
synthesized the ancient wisdom of Yoga into five
basic
principles, which can be easily incorporated
into
everyone's own pattern of life. These principles
are:
....
============================
Please suggest what it will take to create the human demand necessary
to catalyze sufficient:
of Investment in the graceful roll out
of "The Robotic Wageless Economy©
COMMUNICAE 12556
SUPERCLASS
BOOK RECOMMENDATION, Table of Contents, and Excerpts BELOW these COMMENTS
All I can say is go and reserve this book @ your Public Library and read it ASAP, it is a great book and will give you perspective.
COMMENT 1
Bottom line question you want to ask yourself when reading SuperClass is, when will these highly influential players accelerate the "ROLLOUT of the ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY" which will "Emancipate Humanity from the Machinery of Economy" once and for All ?
Jewish scripture has long pointed to "Economies of the Future" where labor will end once and for all, and we are obviously on the cusp of this reality, if we can only get these Billionaire Babies to make the subtle changes necessary to Roll Out The ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY sooner rather than later.
This inevitable transition to The ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY will help everyone, since robots are the cheapest labor of all, and it has always been the case that when you give the people what they want and need, i.e. freedom from meaningless toil and meaningless vicious pathetic lives, everything improves with almost lightning fast "phase change-like" speed, just look @ what refrigeration, telephones, and the works of people like Moses, and Amadeo Pietro Giannini did by enabling and believing in the sanctity of the common human.
COMMENT 2
aidan & ian: thanks for your thoughtful comments re: the Book SUPERCLASS !
the key to understanding is to realize that those who control the money supply are "real" people, and those who do not are people attempting to become "real".
those attempting to become "real" are robots for the "real" people...
repeat that to yourself as many times as it takes to understand and get over your pride about yourself if you happen to be in a state of "becoming" real, as most are.
It is better to know where you really are versus being a fool for one second longer, which would prevent you from ever being "awake".
the notion of creating money out of nothing is not far from the reality of "people" being created out of nothing, not unlike crops or cattle...
Don't worry if this does not make sense to you, just know this,
that real ROBOTS can do the work that human ROBOTS have being doing for eons for the elites.
Then all humans can join the Elite Ranks
read how this will happen hopefully in your lifetimes:
http://RoboEco.com/SuperClass
Be well !!!
Read more about the ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY here:
http://RoboEco.com/SuperClass
SUPERCLASS Table of Contents
Preface xiii
Introduction: The Power Elite on the Promenade 3
Acknowledgments 357
Index 363
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT "SUPERCLASS":
Superclass
The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making
By Rothkopf, David Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2008
Rothkopf, David
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780374272104
Excerpt
Gentiana is a small restaurant that would scarcely warrant a second glance in any other village in Europe. It is rather traditional, only slightly more charming than the bland shops and modest hotels around it. One nearby storefront offers a remarkable array of Swiss Army knives, another boxes of chocolates, another fur hats and mountain gear. The restaurant has a cozy, neighborhood feel to it. Beside the door there is a blackboard highlighting a few specials, and on the ground floor there may be seating for twenty if they are both thin enough and friendly enough. Upstairs there are a few small rooms for private parties, the biggest of which seats ten people squeezed in on either side of a long narrow table. Most of its character comes from a feel of woody intimacy, the dark wood façade, dark wood floors, dark wood tables. In fact, for all its charm, it is definitely not a place for claustrophobes—or people with an extreme fear of splinters. The reason to go to Gentiana is the fondue, especially the cheese fondue, which is offered in robust portions that recall an era before cardiologists. My wife, Adrean, has a special weakness for fondue, and every year that we have gone to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos we have gone to Gentiana for her birthday. We make reservations long in advance because during the week of theJanuary meetings, which are attended each year by more than 2,000 business and government leaders from around the world, getting a table at Gentiana is not much easier than getting one at renowned eateries like Aragawa in Tokyo, Gordon Ramsay in London, or Le Bernardin in New York. Perhaps more surprisingly, for that one week the clientele at this humble Swiss bistro looks pretty much the same as what you might find at those world-class restaurants. Of course, even during that week, there are still a few tables at Gentiana occupied by locals. One regular is a particularly garrulous drunk who loves to hobnob with the CEOs, heads of state, and rock stars who are wedged in, elbow to elbow, spinning hunks of bread on long forks in the pots of bubbling Gruyère. The local speaks only Swiss-German to the polyglot crowds around him, and few understand him, although judging by his demeanor the casual observer is not sure whether that has to do with the language he speaks or the local beer that he favors. No matter. He smiles and they smile, and the general effect is cheerful and relaxed. One afternoon during a recent Davos, my wife and I were hurrying along the sidewalk on our way to Gentiana. This can be dangerous, as the locals do not shovel away the snow and ice lurks just about everywhere. In fact, attendees at Davos can see with some regularity central bank governors and senior executives of the IMF and other distinguished middle-aged men and women swaddled in cashmere, calfskin, and politically incorrect pelts of many origins launched skyward, only to land on their broader, softer regions. We walked gingerly, therefore, but with purpose, knowing we were meeting our friends in just a few minutes. The weather was typical. A light snow was falling. It was very cold. But the Alpine air was crisp and dry and invigorating. We chatted about the meetings, who we had seen and who we hoped to run into. As we walked, we reflexively did what most of the visitors to this small mountain town do: We glanced at the people passing us in the street, trying to determine who they were. (Given the nature of Davos, they were likely to have been somebody.) It’s a ritual made easier by the fact that everyone at the meeting has to wear a badge around his or her neck at all times. The badge is used to get through the many security checkpoints—there are at least two Swiss soldiers and policemen in Davos for every delegate who attends the meetings—to register for sessions, and to let everyone know who you are. Your name is on the badge, along with the organization you represent. So too is your picture. People tend to walk with their badges dangling in plain sight so they don’t have to fumble with them getting in and out of buildings or past police. That’s how it was for everyone except for the universally recognizable—people like Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Tony Blair, Bono, or Angelina Jolie. The badge-scanning move is so ubiquitous you might call it the Davos dip: Bend the knee slightly, cast a subtle glance downward, assess and move on. Leaving the Congress Centre and walking along Davos’s main street, the Promenade, we passed Thierry Desmarest, the CEO of Total; a small cluster of Harvard professors; a senior executive of Saudi Aramco; and a woman pulling her two small children on a sled. (She was local and the sled seemed to hint at the reason they don’t shovel the sidewalks.) We stopped briefly to chat with Tom Donohue, the CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who happens to be my wife’s boss, then paused a few steps later to chat with an Indian-born U.S. venture capitalist with whom I had some business. It was a typical sample. Five minutes along the Davos Promenade in January offered a cavalcade of freeze-dried economic leaders from three continents. About two blocks from Gentiana, I was grousing about how one of the conversations that I had most wanted to have had resulted in a frustrating series of near misses. The objective was a long-delayed chat with Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian author of The Alchemist. Coelho has sold more than one hundred million copies of his books worldwide and is, after the Harry Potter author, J. K. Rowling, the second-best-selling author on the planet. He is also one of the few cultural regulars at Davos, one of a handful of people who might offer a different perspective on the Davos zeitgeist. We had intended to meet almost a year earlier but, due to a series of scheduling mishaps, had repeatedly failed to do so. Finally, we aimed for Davos, but I had yet to lay eyes on him. What did I expect from a man who lived on the other side of the world and was constantly in motion—a Brazilian who lived much of the time in Europe and sold many of his books in Russia? There was a little bit of hubris in thinking we might ever be able to end up in the same place at the same time. And then: “Oh, my God,” said a voice I did not recognize, “it’s you.” A smallish man in a fur hat was staring at my name badge. He had a graying goatee, and he greeted me like a long-lost cousin. It was Coelho, appearing almost miraculously out of the Alpine mist as if conjured by our conversation. Passing along the sidewalk from the Congress Centre where we had just heard an address by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and comments from the Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, through the stream of big name boulevardiers, and then walking directly into this icon of the global literary scene—it was made clear again that Davos was truly the incarnation of Marshall McLuhan’s global village. It was like small-town Planet Earth, or the once-a-year Brigadoon of globalization: a community connected to everywhere and, in one way or another, to everyone. Indeed, during the course of this meeting, top trade ministers would caucus to try unsuccessfully to rescue global trade talks, Africa activists would meet with corporate chiefs and political leaders to seek funding for medical aid programs, global warming would “go mainstream” as mostly American skeptics were persuaded by session after session of expert views, and proponents of different solutions for dealing with everything from anxiety about immigrants to anxiety about terrorism would present their views directly to those in a position to implement them. If, as Hillary Clinton has asserted, it takes a village to raise a child, this seemed to be the village it took to run the world. Coelho and I had never met, but thanks to the wonders of the information age we had enough e-mail history that our conversation was familiar and fairly ebullient. He offered to have lunch, but we gestured toward Gentiana, explaining that we had a prior engagement. I eagerly made an appointment to sit down with him later that afternoon at the Kongress Hotel. Over the three and a half decades of its existence, this mountaintop gathering clearly had done more than merely transform Davos from sleepy ski town to cosmopolitan hub. More than a meeting place for international business, government, media, and cultural leaders, it now was a symbol for the knitting together of the world, literally and figuratively a summit of summits. The concept of what the political scientist Samuel Huntington called “Davos man”—the global citizen, the leader for whom borders were increasingly irrelevant—described a new leadership class for our era. When founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, the organization that would become known as the World Economic Forum had a narrower mission. It was focused on convening European business leaders for a discussion of that continent’s rather uncertain economic fortunes. To put the moment in context, it is worth recalling that in 1971, Europe was still living in the aftermath of World War II and was on the front line of the cold war, still more the self-anointed seat of civilization than the “modern” Europe of more modest, less imperial, more multilateralist inclinations. In fact, it was not until three years later that the first of Europe’s great colonial powers, Portugal, granted independence to Guinea-Bissau, Angola, and Mozambique. The United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark did not join the European Union until 1973. Though the Treaty of Rome had initiated the creation of Europe’s Common Market in 1957, it would be more than two decades before the Maastricht Treaty institutionalized the idea of a true single market among the nations of the continent. Europe was clearly in transition at the moment of the forum’s birth. I was in high school at the time, and in college when the World Economic Forum was really gaining its sea legs in the late 1970s. I’ll admit, international conferences didn’t really capture my imagination when I was a teenager, but my education was absolutely colored with the Western worldview of those times, with classical education built on the presumed superiority of European ideas and the history and cultural contributions of other regions seen as exotic and secondary. At Columbia University, we were required to take the “core curriculum,” which was built around two major courses. One, Humanities, was a survey course of the defining works in literature. The second, Contemporary Civilization, was a survey of the great works in political philosophy and related disciplines, beginning with the Greeks and continuing through the modern era. The two courses, in retrospect, were undoubtedly the highlight of my education and have benefited me probably every day of my life since I took them. (Of course, I did not recognize this at the time.) In Contemporary Civilization, we read—at the pace of one significant, sometimes mind-blowing, occasionally mind-numbing book a week—the writings of everyone (male and white) from Plato to Descartes to Darwin. Somewhere around Max Weber and other analysts and critics of modernity, the curriculum got more varied, with different professors assigning different texts, as it was harder to agree on what qualified as essential reading. One of the more popular assignments at that point in the course was The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills, a 1956 book that explored the national power structure in the United States. Mills, a former Columbia professor of sociology, wrote the book as a study of how America really worked. His central claim was that at the top tier of the business, government, and military communities, there was a remarkably small and overlapping echelon of “deciders.” This national “power elite” wascomposed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions to make decisions having major consequences . . . They are in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society. They rule the big corporations. They run the machinery of the state and claim its prerogatives. They direct the military establishment. They occupy the strategic command posts of the social structure, in which are now centered the effective means of the power and the wealth and the celebrity which they enjoy.Mills asserted that these elites took similar paths to positions of privilege, ensuring that many among their homogeneous numbers knew one another. In addition, they often crossed sectors: from top roles in government to top roles in business, from the the White House cabinet to the boardroom, from military commands to politics, from one position of great responsibility to another. Thus, Mills claimed, they created a kind of interlocking directorate for the United States of America. Mills’s book was as much a critique as it was a description of this group and America’s midcentury leadership. It explored, in meticulous detail, the concentration of power among a comparatively few corporations and individuals, and the manifold links of American leaders to key institutions. The book then veered into polemic, lamenting the disproportionate influence of this group. One of the men who no doubt inspired many of Mills’s points, President Eisenhower, also best illustrated them. A former supreme allied commander in Europe as well as a former president of Columbia University, Eisenhower captured much of Mills’s spirit in his farewell address as president in 1961:[The] conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. One little-remembered aspect of Eisenhower’s speech is that it contained not one but two central warnings. While the first, concerning the military-industrial complex, is more often cited, he also expressed equivalent concerns about the emergence of what he called the “scientific-technological elite.” His concerns, like Mills’s, reflect the zeitgeist of the 1950s, in which the predominant historical memory was of World War II and the subjugation of all U.S. political, financial, and industrial efforts to the goal of military victory. The predominant fear of the moment was of technology run amok as manifested in the growing threat of global thermonuclear war. Since Eisenhower spoke in 1961, technological innovation has not only fueled America’s unprecedented growth but it has empowered people in new ways; it perhaps even helped to bring down the United States’ cold war adversary, as the rise of the information age made it impossible for a closed society to compete. Yet, despite the resilient strength of America’s military-industrial establishment, defense spending and manpower have receded from their highs during World War II and the cold war years. In his speech, Eisenhower speaks of a 3.5-million-person military; today the U.S. military is only 1.5 million men and women strong (with nearly 1 million more in the reserves). He also notes that at the time of his speech the U.S. military budget exceeded the total net income of all U.S. companies. Today, while the defense budget exceeds $425 billion, the earnings of only the fifty most profitable U.S. companies top that number and, indeed, the combined revenues of just the top two, ExxonMobil and Wal-Mart, dwarf it, beating it by more than 50 percent. Without a doubt, corporate economic clout has grown dramatically. Mills’s book is still read and is now considered a classic critique of America’s power structure, but it is also clear that the world has changed profoundly in the fifty years since its publication. Excerpted from Superclass by David Rothkopf. Copyright © 2008 by David Rothkopf. Published in March 2008 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.
Continues...
Excerpted from Superclass by Rothkopf, David Copyright © 2008 by Rothkopf, David. Excerpted by permission.
Introduction: The Power Elite on the Promenade 3
- Each
One Is One in a Million: Meet the Superclass
- The Corporate Side of the Superclass
- Vilfredo Pareto's Enduring Insight: The 80/20 Rule and the Superclass
- A Snapshot of the Superclass
- What Does Disproportionate Power Look Like?
- What the People Who Have Everything Really Want
- Six Central Issues Associated with the Superclass
- Not All Boats Are Lifted
- Not a Country But a Country Club
- Not Just a Chilean Paradox
- And After the Easy Part ...
- Ceteris Non Paribus: Inequality of Power, Inequality of Wealth
- War of the Rich and the Superrich?
- The Inequitable Distribution of Luck
- Premium Pay in the Executive Suite
- Inequality Revisited
- The Power of History
- The Power of Institutions
- The Power of Money
- The Power of Politics
- The Power of Force
- The Power of Networks
- From the Wanaxes to the Robber Barons: The Rise and Fall of Elites
- Stirrings of Democracy: Greece from 2000 to 323 BCE
- The Forbidden City Opened from Within: China in the Seventeenth Century
- Robber Barons or Inventors of Modernity: America After the Civil War
- The Corporate Cluster Within the Superclass
- The Interlinked Corporate Elite
- What Global Power Can Do
- Energy Elites: A UniquePublic-Private Network
- From the "Sun King" to the "God Pod"
- Global Industry, Global Leadership
- The Power Vacuum
- Gangsters for Capitalism?
- The Rules Change But the Game Stays the Same: Political Elites Worldwide
- Behind the Scenes: The Globalization of the Smoke-Filled Back Room
- Tangled Webs and Tottering Institutions
- An Informal Affair: The Sovereignty vs. Democracy Trade-Off
- The Global Network of Antiglobalists
- The Terrorist Threat in Perspective
- The Roots of Global Networks
- Green Is Not Just the Color of the Uniforms
- Consolidation and Concentration of Military Power
- Networks Among Defense Firms
- They're All in a Tiny Room
- The Privatization of the Military: A Two-Way Street
- Permanent War's Bottom Line: A Country and an Alliance Beyond All Others
- The Fly and the Lion
- Fresh and Yet Strangely Familiar
- An Ascendant Voice of Change in the Middle East
- New Media Monkey-Gland Injections: A Quick Shot of Sizzle
- Pro Bono
- Saving the World One Idea at a Time
- The Reenchantment of the World
- Pastor of Partying
- The Telemuslim
- Dissident Spirituality or Subversive Cult?
- The Pragmatic Fanatic
- A Very Short History of Things That Didn't Really Happen-And Their Very Real Consequences
- When Is a Trowel Just a Trowel?
- Can It Be Considered an Academic Elite Society If George W. Bush Was a Member?
- The "Ex-Presidents' Club"
- The Big Events: Less Than Meets the Eye?
- The Clinton Global Initiative and the Power of Global Philanthropy
- California's Superclass Summer Camp
- Asian and Latin American "Wannabes" or Harbingers of the Supermeetings of Tomorrow?
- How to Become a Member of the Superclass
- The Psychopathology of Success
- In Praise of Our Elites vs. Their Elites
- Disproportionate Concentration of Power
- Agenda-Setting
- Informal Mechanisms of Governance
- Elites vs. the Disenfranchised
- Elites vs. Women
- Elites and Mobility
- Institutions vs. Individuals
- The Emerging Superclass: A Coming Culture Shock?
- Global Governance vs. Global Government
- Is a Crisis Inevitable?
- On Balance
Acknowledgments 357
Index 363
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT "SUPERCLASS":
From the Publisher
Each
of them is one in a million. They
number six thousand on a planet of six billion. They run our
governments, our largest corporations, the powerhouses of international
finance, the media, world religions, and, from the shadows, the world's
most dangerous criminal and terrorist organizations. They are the
global superclass, and they are shaping the history of our time.
Today's
superclass has achieved unprecedented levels of wealth and power. They
have globalized more rapidly than any other group. But do they have
more in common with one another than with their own countrymen, as
nationalist critics have argued? They control globalization more than
anyone else. But has their influence fed the growing economic and
social inequity that divides the world? What happens behind closed door
meetings in Davos or aboard corporate jets at 41,000 feet? Conspiracy
or collaboration? Deal-making or idle self-indulgence? What does the
rise of Asia and Latin America mean for the conventional wisdom that
shapes our destinies? Who sets the rules for a group that operates
beyond national laws?
Drawn from scores of exclusive interviews and extensive original
reporting, Superclass answers
all of these questions and more. It draws back the curtain on a
privileged society that most of us know little about, even though it
profoundly affects our everyday lives. It is the first in-depth
examination of the connections between the global communities of
leaders who are at the helm of every major enterprise on the planet and
control its greatest wealth. And it is an unprecedented examination of
the trends within the superclass, which are likely to alter our
politics, our institutions, and the shape of the world in which we
live.
Andrea Sachs - Time
There
are just over
6,000 people in the superclass. So says the author of this fascinating
book, a field guide to the world's most élite citizens. See the
rich
and powerful in their natural habitats, from Davos and Bilderberg to
the Bohemian Grove....
sysop@TeamInfinity.com,
April 30, 2008, SuperClass is a Must Read If you want to be all you can be, you need to understand what the world looks like through the eyes of those at the top. SuperClass is an excellent book that will help you to know yourself better as you get to know the elites better. Once you better understand the Elites, you can then proceed to reach out to them, because they are in the best position to change the world in directions that perhaps only those NOT at the top can fully appreciate the need for. You must let them know you exist and are important and that with their reach and leverage, while adopting the correct approach, they can change the world in ways few fully appreciate. Specifically you want to understand the coming 'Robotic Wageless Economy', and then reach out to the elites and persuade them to steer the world in the direction where the 'Robotic Wageless Economy' can become a reality in our lifetimes, emancipating humans from the machinery of economy and ushering in an Age of Recreation never before possible, and more likely if the SuperClass realizes its potential to achieve it, so READ the book SuperClass, you will enjoy it, and you will be better positioned to change the world by leveraging the SuperClass yourself ! Also recommended: Tragedy and Hope - Professor Quigley, True Believer - Eric Hoffer, All Franz Kafka Works, Mao: The Untold Story |
Kirkus Reviews
Some 6,000 people, about one for every million in the world's population, drive the decisions that directly affect the global economic climate in which our governments, corporations, military leaders, technocrats and workers must strive. In other words, they run our lives. So declares Rothkopf (International Affairs/Columbia Univ.; Running the World: the Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power, 2005, etc.), who dubs this elite the "Superclass." Members may be found in places like Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum convenes annually, or at gatherings in California's Bohemian Grove, where Republican powerbrokers howl and grunt like Neanderthals. Though international in origin, they share a number of traits: wealth (sometimes mega-wealth), blue-chip educations garnered at world-renowned universities and access to networked ways of getting things done that few of us can even imagine. Key clusters of these individuals comprise the top functionaries of national governments and those who peddle influence among them, the corporate elite, the power media and the military/industrial complex (now far more integrated and tightly knit across national borders). Together they are essentially herding the industrialized nations, including Asian giants China and India, into a corral that the author labels "global governance." His book details the means by which they acquire, negotiate and exercise the clout to do this. "It is hard to ignore the many ways they are the primary beneficiaries of the global order that they shape," opines Rothkopf, partner in an international consulting firm and a Washington insider in the Clinton Administration who boasts firsthand experience of how power is wielded. An impressively knowledgeable guide to the world's elite and how they have coalesced as a kind of natural order. Agent: Esmond Harmsworth/Zachary Shuster Harmsworth
What People Are Saying
Richard Holbrooke
"Whether
you like it or not, there is no way to deny the enormous,
disproportionate, concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a
relatively small number of people in the world today. David Rothkopf
has described who they are, and how they operate and interact, vividly
in his valuable (and often disturbing) new book."--(Richard Holbrooke,
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations)
Lawrence Summers
"The activities of a
growing cosmopolitan elite are having profound effects. They can be
highly desirable when they promote international cooperation or more
problematic when the interests of the elites diverge from those of
their citizens. David Rothkopf's Superclass skillfully probes these
issues and many more and should be read by all those concerned with the
international economy and the evolving global system."--(Lawrence
Summers, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury)
Ernesto Zedillo
"Thanks to Rothkopf's
special blend of analysis, direct interaction with his subjects and
vivid writing, this is a must read book for people interested in
understanding the genesis of leadership in the new global
economy."--(Ernesto Zedillo, Director of the Yale Center for the Study
of Globalization and Former President of Mexico)
Clyde Prestowitz
"David Rothkopf has
written a super book about the people presently executing an historic
shift of world economic and political power and about how they are
doing it and why. If you want to know how your choices are being
determined and the circumstances of your life conditioned, you must
read this book."--(Clyde Prestowitz, President of the Economic Strategy
Institute and author of Three Billion New Capitalists)
Alan Blinder
"No, no vast conspiracy
runs the world. But, according to Rothkopf's book, a tiny but diverse
global elite, a Superclass, comes close. His finely-honed prose takes
the reader on a joyous, entertaining, and erudite romp around the globe
in search of that class."--(Alan Blinder, Former Vice Chairman of the
Federal Reserve Bank of the United States)
EXCERPTs
from SUPERCLASS:
Page:
48
Overwhelming
and
perhaps confusing as this list [of 6000] may be, it reveals the complex
nature of connections among members of the SuperClass. It is, by
necessity, a partial list for a small cross section of people, but
already illustrates how tangled a web of relationships between
individuals is. For all its twists and turns and intricate
linkages, it explains in the clearest way possible how Schwarzman and
others in the SuperClass have come to see their group as such a "small
world", with everyone just a connection or two away from everyone else.
So
among the roughly
six thousand members of the superclass there are countless threads
linking members to one another. Business associations. Investments.
Board Memberships. Old school ties. Exclusive
neighborhoods. Aviation terminals. Meetings.
Restaurants. Hotels.
In
fact, spread
around the world though they are, rare as they may be among the teeming
billions on the planet, it is easy to see them as a community and to
see the geography of that community take shape at least in the mind's
eye - a geography that stretches from South Kensington to the Upper
East Side of Manhattan; from St. Tropez to Dubai; from the breeding
grounds at Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, and Tokyo University to meeting
place on the boards of cultural institutions, banks, and political
bodies. Linked together by common interests, a common culture,
and private aircraft, these islands become a glittering, superpowered
archipelago amid oceans of aspirants and of the disenfranchised -
oceans of people who work for them, are buffeted by their market
decisions, are swept along by their political impulses, are profoundly
influenced by their views.
It
is not a geography
visible on any map, [except perhaps in books like
this] yet it touches the lives in the global era more
surely than do the fading borders and old distance scales found on any
common globe. Over the course of the next several chapters, I try
to put that geography into context - in terms of issues, history, and a
more detailed look at the membership of this emerging SuperClass.
Synopsis
Each
of them is one in a million. They number six
thousand on a planet of six billion. They run our governments, our
largest corporations, the powerhouses of international finance, the
media, world religions, and, from the shadows, the world's most
dangerous criminal and terrorist organizations. They are the global
superclass, and they are shaping the history of our time.
Today's
superclass has achieved unprecedented levels of wealth and power. They
have globalized more rapidly than any other group. But do they have
more in common with one another than with their own countrymen, as
nationalist critics have argued? They control globalization more than
anyone else. But has their influence fed the growing economic and
social inequity that divides the world? What happens behind closeddoor
meetings in Davos or aboard corporate jets at 41,000 feet? Conspiracy
or collaboration? Deal-making or idle self-indulgence? What does the
rise of Asia and Latin America mean for the conventional wisdom that
shapes our destinies? Who sets the rules for a group that operates
beyond national laws?
Drawn from scores of exclusive interviews and extensive original
reporting, Superclass answers
all of these questions and more. It draws back the curtain on a
privileged society that most of us know little about, even though it
profoundly affects our everyday lives. It is the first in-depth
examination of the connections between the global communities of
leaders who are at the helm of every major enterprise on the planet and
control its greatest wealth. And it is an unprecedented examination of
the trends within the superclass, which are likely to alter our
politics, our institutions, and theshape of the world in which we live.
Read a Sample Chapter
Superclass
The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making
By Rothkopf, David Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2008
Rothkopf, David
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780374272104
Excerpt
Gentiana is a small restaurant that would scarcely warrant a second glance in any other village in Europe. It is rather traditional, only slightly more charming than the bland shops and modest hotels around it. One nearby storefront offers a remarkable array of Swiss Army knives, another boxes of chocolates, another fur hats and mountain gear. The restaurant has a cozy, neighborhood feel to it. Beside the door there is a blackboard highlighting a few specials, and on the ground floor there may be seating for twenty if they are both thin enough and friendly enough. Upstairs there are a few small rooms for private parties, the biggest of which seats ten people squeezed in on either side of a long narrow table. Most of its character comes from a feel of woody intimacy, the dark wood façade, dark wood floors, dark wood tables. In fact, for all its charm, it is definitely not a place for claustrophobes—or people with an extreme fear of splinters. The reason to go to Gentiana is the fondue, especially the cheese fondue, which is offered in robust portions that recall an era before cardiologists. My wife, Adrean, has a special weakness for fondue, and every year that we have gone to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos we have gone to Gentiana for her birthday. We make reservations long in advance because during the week of theJanuary meetings, which are attended each year by more than 2,000 business and government leaders from around the world, getting a table at Gentiana is not much easier than getting one at renowned eateries like Aragawa in Tokyo, Gordon Ramsay in London, or Le Bernardin in New York. Perhaps more surprisingly, for that one week the clientele at this humble Swiss bistro looks pretty much the same as what you might find at those world-class restaurants. Of course, even during that week, there are still a few tables at Gentiana occupied by locals. One regular is a particularly garrulous drunk who loves to hobnob with the CEOs, heads of state, and rock stars who are wedged in, elbow to elbow, spinning hunks of bread on long forks in the pots of bubbling Gruyère. The local speaks only Swiss-German to the polyglot crowds around him, and few understand him, although judging by his demeanor the casual observer is not sure whether that has to do with the language he speaks or the local beer that he favors. No matter. He smiles and they smile, and the general effect is cheerful and relaxed. One afternoon during a recent Davos, my wife and I were hurrying along the sidewalk on our way to Gentiana. This can be dangerous, as the locals do not shovel away the snow and ice lurks just about everywhere. In fact, attendees at Davos can see with some regularity central bank governors and senior executives of the IMF and other distinguished middle-aged men and women swaddled in cashmere, calfskin, and politically incorrect pelts of many origins launched skyward, only to land on their broader, softer regions. We walked gingerly, therefore, but with purpose, knowing we were meeting our friends in just a few minutes. The weather was typical. A light snow was falling. It was very cold. But the Alpine air was crisp and dry and invigorating. We chatted about the meetings, who we had seen and who we hoped to run into. As we walked, we reflexively did what most of the visitors to this small mountain town do: We glanced at the people passing us in the street, trying to determine who they were. (Given the nature of Davos, they were likely to have been somebody.) It’s a ritual made easier by the fact that everyone at the meeting has to wear a badge around his or her neck at all times. The badge is used to get through the many security checkpoints—there are at least two Swiss soldiers and policemen in Davos for every delegate who attends the meetings—to register for sessions, and to let everyone know who you are. Your name is on the badge, along with the organization you represent. So too is your picture. People tend to walk with their badges dangling in plain sight so they don’t have to fumble with them getting in and out of buildings or past police. That’s how it was for everyone except for the universally recognizable—people like Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Tony Blair, Bono, or Angelina Jolie. The badge-scanning move is so ubiquitous you might call it the Davos dip: Bend the knee slightly, cast a subtle glance downward, assess and move on. Leaving the Congress Centre and walking along Davos’s main street, the Promenade, we passed Thierry Desmarest, the CEO of Total; a small cluster of Harvard professors; a senior executive of Saudi Aramco; and a woman pulling her two small children on a sled. (She was local and the sled seemed to hint at the reason they don’t shovel the sidewalks.) We stopped briefly to chat with Tom Donohue, the CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who happens to be my wife’s boss, then paused a few steps later to chat with an Indian-born U.S. venture capitalist with whom I had some business. It was a typical sample. Five minutes along the Davos Promenade in January offered a cavalcade of freeze-dried economic leaders from three continents. About two blocks from Gentiana, I was grousing about how one of the conversations that I had most wanted to have had resulted in a frustrating series of near misses. The objective was a long-delayed chat with Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian author of The Alchemist. Coelho has sold more than one hundred million copies of his books worldwide and is, after the Harry Potter author, J. K. Rowling, the second-best-selling author on the planet. He is also one of the few cultural regulars at Davos, one of a handful of people who might offer a different perspective on the Davos zeitgeist. We had intended to meet almost a year earlier but, due to a series of scheduling mishaps, had repeatedly failed to do so. Finally, we aimed for Davos, but I had yet to lay eyes on him. What did I expect from a man who lived on the other side of the world and was constantly in motion—a Brazilian who lived much of the time in Europe and sold many of his books in Russia? There was a little bit of hubris in thinking we might ever be able to end up in the same place at the same time. And then: “Oh, my God,” said a voice I did not recognize, “it’s you.” A smallish man in a fur hat was staring at my name badge. He had a graying goatee, and he greeted me like a long-lost cousin. It was Coelho, appearing almost miraculously out of the Alpine mist as if conjured by our conversation. Passing along the sidewalk from the Congress Centre where we had just heard an address by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and comments from the Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, through the stream of big name boulevardiers, and then walking directly into this icon of the global literary scene—it was made clear again that Davos was truly the incarnation of Marshall McLuhan’s global village. It was like small-town Planet Earth, or the once-a-year Brigadoon of globalization: a community connected to everywhere and, in one way or another, to everyone. Indeed, during the course of this meeting, top trade ministers would caucus to try unsuccessfully to rescue global trade talks, Africa activists would meet with corporate chiefs and political leaders to seek funding for medical aid programs, global warming would “go mainstream” as mostly American skeptics were persuaded by session after session of expert views, and proponents of different solutions for dealing with everything from anxiety about immigrants to anxiety about terrorism would present their views directly to those in a position to implement them. If, as Hillary Clinton has asserted, it takes a village to raise a child, this seemed to be the village it took to run the world. Coelho and I had never met, but thanks to the wonders of the information age we had enough e-mail history that our conversation was familiar and fairly ebullient. He offered to have lunch, but we gestured toward Gentiana, explaining that we had a prior engagement. I eagerly made an appointment to sit down with him later that afternoon at the Kongress Hotel. Over the three and a half decades of its existence, this mountaintop gathering clearly had done more than merely transform Davos from sleepy ski town to cosmopolitan hub. More than a meeting place for international business, government, media, and cultural leaders, it now was a symbol for the knitting together of the world, literally and figuratively a summit of summits. The concept of what the political scientist Samuel Huntington called “Davos man”—the global citizen, the leader for whom borders were increasingly irrelevant—described a new leadership class for our era. When founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, the organization that would become known as the World Economic Forum had a narrower mission. It was focused on convening European business leaders for a discussion of that continent’s rather uncertain economic fortunes. To put the moment in context, it is worth recalling that in 1971, Europe was still living in the aftermath of World War II and was on the front line of the cold war, still more the self-anointed seat of civilization than the “modern” Europe of more modest, less imperial, more multilateralist inclinations. In fact, it was not until three years later that the first of Europe’s great colonial powers, Portugal, granted independence to Guinea-Bissau, Angola, and Mozambique. The United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark did not join the European Union until 1973. Though the Treaty of Rome had initiated the creation of Europe’s Common Market in 1957, it would be more than two decades before the Maastricht Treaty institutionalized the idea of a true single market among the nations of the continent. Europe was clearly in transition at the moment of the forum’s birth. I was in high school at the time, and in college when the World Economic Forum was really gaining its sea legs in the late 1970s. I’ll admit, international conferences didn’t really capture my imagination when I was a teenager, but my education was absolutely colored with the Western worldview of those times, with classical education built on the presumed superiority of European ideas and the history and cultural contributions of other regions seen as exotic and secondary. At Columbia University, we were required to take the “core curriculum,” which was built around two major courses. One, Humanities, was a survey course of the defining works in literature. The second, Contemporary Civilization, was a survey of the great works in political philosophy and related disciplines, beginning with the Greeks and continuing through the modern era. The two courses, in retrospect, were undoubtedly the highlight of my education and have benefited me probably every day of my life since I took them. (Of course, I did not recognize this at the time.) In Contemporary Civilization, we read—at the pace of one significant, sometimes mind-blowing, occasionally mind-numbing book a week—the writings of everyone (male and white) from Plato to Descartes to Darwin. Somewhere around Max Weber and other analysts and critics of modernity, the curriculum got more varied, with different professors assigning different texts, as it was harder to agree on what qualified as essential reading. One of the more popular assignments at that point in the course was The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills, a 1956 book that explored the national power structure in the United States. Mills, a former Columbia professor of sociology, wrote the book as a study of how America really worked. His central claim was that at the top tier of the business, government, and military communities, there was a remarkably small and overlapping echelon of “deciders.” This national “power elite” wascomposed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions to make decisions having major consequences . . . They are in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society. They rule the big corporations. They run the machinery of the state and claim its prerogatives. They direct the military establishment. They occupy the strategic command posts of the social structure, in which are now centered the effective means of the power and the wealth and the celebrity which they enjoy.Mills asserted that these elites took similar paths to positions of privilege, ensuring that many among their homogeneous numbers knew one another. In addition, they often crossed sectors: from top roles in government to top roles in business, from the the White House cabinet to the boardroom, from military commands to politics, from one position of great responsibility to another. Thus, Mills claimed, they created a kind of interlocking directorate for the United States of America. Mills’s book was as much a critique as it was a description of this group and America’s midcentury leadership. It explored, in meticulous detail, the concentration of power among a comparatively few corporations and individuals, and the manifold links of American leaders to key institutions. The book then veered into polemic, lamenting the disproportionate influence of this group. One of the men who no doubt inspired many of Mills’s points, President Eisenhower, also best illustrated them. A former supreme allied commander in Europe as well as a former president of Columbia University, Eisenhower captured much of Mills’s spirit in his farewell address as president in 1961:[The] conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. One little-remembered aspect of Eisenhower’s speech is that it contained not one but two central warnings. While the first, concerning the military-industrial complex, is more often cited, he also expressed equivalent concerns about the emergence of what he called the “scientific-technological elite.” His concerns, like Mills’s, reflect the zeitgeist of the 1950s, in which the predominant historical memory was of World War II and the subjugation of all U.S. political, financial, and industrial efforts to the goal of military victory. The predominant fear of the moment was of technology run amok as manifested in the growing threat of global thermonuclear war. Since Eisenhower spoke in 1961, technological innovation has not only fueled America’s unprecedented growth but it has empowered people in new ways; it perhaps even helped to bring down the United States’ cold war adversary, as the rise of the information age made it impossible for a closed society to compete. Yet, despite the resilient strength of America’s military-industrial establishment, defense spending and manpower have receded from their highs during World War II and the cold war years. In his speech, Eisenhower speaks of a 3.5-million-person military; today the U.S. military is only 1.5 million men and women strong (with nearly 1 million more in the reserves). He also notes that at the time of his speech the U.S. military budget exceeded the total net income of all U.S. companies. Today, while the defense budget exceeds $425 billion, the earnings of only the fifty most profitable U.S. companies top that number and, indeed, the combined revenues of just the top two, ExxonMobil and Wal-Mart, dwarf it, beating it by more than 50 percent. Without a doubt, corporate economic clout has grown dramatically. Mills’s book is still read and is now considered a classic critique of America’s power structure, but it is also clear that the world has changed profoundly in the fifty years since its publication. Excerpted from Superclass by David Rothkopf. Copyright © 2008 by David Rothkopf. Published in March 2008 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.
Continues...
Excerpted from Superclass by Rothkopf, David Copyright © 2008 by Rothkopf, David. Excerpted by permission.
BOOK RECOMMENDATION
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The global ruling class
Billion-dollar babies
Apr 24th 2008
From The Economist print edition
From The Economist print edition
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John Paulson, power personified |
WHO rules the world? The most familiar answers to this question are so poisoned by paranoia that it is tempting to dismiss the question itself. If the Jews are so powerful, then why have they had such a dreadful time of things? If the men and women of Davos are so mighty, then why do they keep messing everything up?
Yet the fact that so many people give foolish answers to a question does not discredit the question. The rise of nation states produced national ruling classes. It would be odd if the current integration of the world economy did not produce new global elites—business people and financiers who run global companies and global politicians who steer supra-national organisations such as the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund.
David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that these elites constitute nothing less than a new global “superclass”. They have all the clubby characteristics of the old national ruling classes, but with the vital difference that they operate on the global stage, far from mere national electorates.
They attend the same universities (Mr Rothkopf calculates that Harvard, Stanford and the University of Chicago are now the world's top three superclass producers). They are groomed in a handful of world-spanning institutions such as Goldman Sachs. They belong to the same clubs—the Council on Foreign Relations in New York is a particular favourite—and sit on each other's boards of directors. Many of them shuttle between the public and private sectors. They meet at global events such as the World Economic Forum at Davos and the Trilateral Commission or—for the crème de la crème—the Bilderberg meetings or the Bohemian Grove seminars that take place every July in California.
Mr Rothkopf makes a fascinating tour of the world of the superclass. He opens the door to the office of the head of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, on the top floor of Goldman's tower on New York's Broad Street. He visits the factory that customises Gulfstream jets (every year nearly 10% of Gulfstream's clients attend Davos). He calls on the Carlyle Group where financiers and former presidents get together to make each other richer. And he offers a tour of the weird proceedings of the Bohemian Grove meetings, which Richard Nixon described as “the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine.”
“Superclass” is such a wide-ranging book that it inevitably also raises quibbles. Mr Rothkopf never quite defines the boundaries of his subject. Is he talking about the super-rich? Or about the super-influential? Do the people he talks about really constitute a “class”? Or are they an agglomeration of competing elites with different agendas? Mr Rothkopf adds to the confusion by chasing all manner of hares, including the rise of internet-enabled jihadists.
Mr Rothkopf, whose CV includes a spell working for Kissinger Associates and a period as the deputy under-secretary of commerce for international trade, is much better informed about America than he is about the rest of the world. He is fascinating on the revolving door between the Pentagon and the arms industry, for example, but he says next to nothing about the rise of the EU, one of the great building blocks of the trans-national world. His exposition of the wonders of Davos is more breathless than illuminating.
Still, none of this should put off potential readers: “Superclass” is a pioneering study of a subject that has often been the preserve of conspiracy theorists. Mr Rothkopf is anything but a crank, and he is right when he says that, these days, the most influential people around the world are also the most global people.
He is also admirably ambivalent about his subject. He worries about surging inequality—the richest 1% of humans own 40% of the planet's wealth—and about the rumbling backlash against so much unaccountable power. But he points out that, in a world where most global institutions are lumbering and antiquated, members of the superclass have repeatedly stepped in to put the global system to rights. Let us hope that they have not lost their touch.
Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making.By David Rothkopf.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 400 pages; $26. Little, Brown; £20
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Eric Hoffer Quotes:
"...The basic tenet of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. It is the freedom to refrain, withdraw and abstain which makes a totalitarian regime impossible. Those addicted to action do not probably feel unfree in active totalitarian regime. Hitler won over the generals, technicians and scientists not by preaching to them but by giving them more than they asked for and encouraging them to go the limit..."
BOTH "Faith" and Terror are instruments for the elimination of individual self-respect.
Terror crushes the autonomy of self-respect, while "Faith" obtains its more or less voluntary surrender.
In both cases the result of the elimination of individual autonomy is - automatism.
Both "Faith" & Terror reduce the human entity to a formula that can be manipulated at will.
MAN is indeed a fantastic creature; and nothing about him is so fantastic as the alchemy of his crushed soul which transmutes shame and weakness into pride and faith.
IT HAS been often said that power corrupts. But perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the fruits of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence. They hate not wickedness but weakness. When it is in their power to do so, the weak destroy weakness wherever they see it. Woe to the weak when they are preyed upon by the weak. The self-hatred of the weak is likewise an instance of their hatred of weakness.
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