The Oddly Powerless 'Global Power Elite'

By Doug Henwood, Truthdig
Posted on June 28, 2008, Printed on June 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/89759/

Are we now ruled by an international elite that has left national borders far behind? It's a fashionable view across the political spectrum that enjoys special prominence every January, when the members of that alleged class hold their annual shareholders' meeting in Davos, Switzerland. David Rothkopf, the author of Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making, would strike the alleged from the previous sentence. To him, there's no doubt that this superclass exists and that it's running the show.

We've had a series of books in recent years that amount to little more than a pornography of wealth. But the connection of wealth to actual power is rarely explored. Sure, hedge fund managers can deploy billions, and CEOs can hire and fire thousands, but what is the relation of that narrow economic power to broader political, social and cultural power?