Engineering Empire: An Introduction to the Intellectuals & Institutions of American Imperialism

[Lauren Johnson]

from The Hampton Institute: A Working Class Think Tank

This is a long and worthwhile read. It describes the social contect of elite thinkers and their think tanks from which deep politics are derived. Here is Kissinger's definition of an "expert."

In 1966, prior to entering the Nixon administration, Henry Kissinger wrote an article for the journal Daedalus in which he proclaimed the modern era as "the age of the expert," and went on to explain: "The expert has his constituency those who have a vested interest in commonly held opinions; elaborating and defining its consensus at a high level has, after all, made him an expert." [7] In other words, the "expert" serves entrenched and established power structures and elites ("those who have a vested interest in commonly held opinions"), and the role of such an expert is to define and elaborate the "consensus" of elite interests. Thus, experts, as Henry Kissinger defines them, serve established elites.

And further, this is from a Trilateral Commission report:

In a 1975 report by the Trilateral Commission on The Crisis of Democracy, co-authored by Samuel Huntington, a close associate and friend of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the role of intellectuals came into question, noting that with the plethora of social movements and protests that had emerged from the 1960s onwards, intellectuals were asserting their "disgust with the corruption, materialism, and inefficiency of democracy and with the subservience of democratic government to 'monopoly capitalism'." Thus, noted the report: "the advanced industrial societies have spawned a stratum of value-oriented intellectuals who often devote themselves to the derogation of leadership, the challenging of authority, and the unmasking and delegitimation of established institutions, their behavior contrasting with that of the also increasing numbers of technocratic policy-oriented intellectuals."[10] In other words, intellectuals were increasingly failing to serve as "experts" (as Henry Kissinger defined it), and were increasingly challenging authority and institutionalized power structures instead of serving them, unlike "technocratic and policy-oriented intellectuals."

http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/engine...aQjPpymW9t

[Lauren Johnson]

And then there is this little beauty:

Zbigniew Brzezinski was quite blunt in his assessment of the Cold War - of which he was a major strategic icon - when he wrote in a 1992 article for Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, that the U.S. strategic discourse of the Cold War as a battle between Communist totalitarianism and Western democracy was little more than rhetoric. In Brzezinski's own words: "The policy of liberation was a strategic sham, designed to a significant degree for domestic political reasons... the policy was basically rhetorical, at most tactical." [19] In other words, it was all a lie, carefully constructed to deceive the American population into accepting the actions of a powerful state in its attempts to dominate the world.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Yup.

Kissinger's true colours can be glimpsed in the article below, which is itself a limited hangout.

The Nazi / Gehlen / Gladio networks are real.

The claim that Helmut Kohl destroyed these networks and that Angela Merkel is a paragon of virtue is of course a lie.

Kissinger and the secret spy network of old Nazis and German aristocrats 'who plotted to overthrow West German goverment'

'The Little Service' was made up of many former Gestapo and S.S. men as well as titled barons and counts
Kissnger even discussed with them the possibility of a coup to overthrow the government of Chancellor Willy Brandt
The Little Service which came into being in 1969 and ran for a decade
Was lavishly funded and with more success than state intelligence agencies which were riddled with East German moles

By Allan Hall

PUBLISHED: 13:40, 3 December 2012 | UPDATED: 14:44, 3 December 2012

A German academic has unearthed evidence showing former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once discussed a coup with disgruntled Nazis to overthrow the West German government in the 1970s.

Kissinger and Richard Nixon were aggrieved at the left-leaning government of the day's burgeoning friendship with the hardline East German government.

Kissinger became the contact man for a secret spy network made up of old Nazis and elite aristocrats aimed at torpedoing the plans formulated by Chancellor Willy Brandt.
Secret: Henry Kissinger in the 1970s in his White House office in Washington. He gave advice to a secret network made up of old Nazis and elite aristocrats

By the end of 1970, Kissinger was offering the spies advice on how to deal with Brandt's Social Democratic government.

The group he became embroiled with was called 'The Little Service' and was formed by the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which was allied with Bavaria's Christian Social Union.

One agent who visited Kissinger quoted him saying, 'It might be possible to overthrow the current government, but it remains to be seen whether this would involve risks which could put a Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/ Christian Social Union (CSU) government in great difficulty.

Whether Kissinger, the architect of the disastrous secret bombing of Cambodia in the Vietnam War which paved the way for the Khmer Rouge regime and its hideous genocide programme, approved of the plan to usurp the elected government of the day is unclear.

The group he became embroiled with was called 'The Little Service' and was formed by the conservative CDU party.

Brandt pursued a policy of engagement with the German Democratic Republic, convinced it was better to build bridges with the dictatorship to defuse Cold War tensions rather than always being at loggerheads. For the all-white, all male conservatives of the CDU, this was too much.

They wanted West Germany to face off against the Soviet-backed regime in the belief that isolation would make it crumble. It was out of this belief that its private spy organisation, made up of many former Gestapo and SS men as well as titled barons and counts, was formed.

Political scientist Stefanie Waske spent seven years researching letters from politicians from the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union, and her results are to be published next year; potentially embarrassing timing for Chancellor Angela Merkel who in November 2013 will seek re-election as CDU chancellor for the third time.

Waske approached Kissinger for comment but he refused, as did many of the noblemen who worked for the The Little Service which came into being in 1969 after the party lost its first general election since the postwar republic was formed in 1949. Details of her research are published in the current edition of the German intellectual weekly Die Zeit.

The catalyst for the spy group was Brandt's decision to recognise post-WW2 borders dividing Germany and a pledge Brandt gave that his state would not use violence against the Communist one in the east.

Conservative MP Karl Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg, who was the grandfather of the disgraced former defence minister who had to resign last year after it was discovered he cheated on his doctorate, held a meeting in the autumn of 1969 with former chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger and leading CDU and CSU politicians, the CSU being the Bavarian wing of the party.

'They decided to form an information service for the opposition,' said Waske. 'It was a secret spy service.'

Beliefs: The Little Service wanted what was then West Germany to face off against the Soviet-backed regime in the belief that isolation would make it crumble

Beliefs: The Berlin wall. The catalyst was Brandt's decision to recognise post-WW2 borders dividing Germany and a pledge Brandt gave that his state would not use violence against the Communist one in the east

The former head of the BND, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, was tapped and he offered up a ready-made web of informants across the globe in countries as far apart as the US, France and Saudi Arabia.

Hans Christoph von Stauffenberg, the cousin of the man who tried and failed to kill Hitler in the July 1944 bomb plot, was chosen to head the network.

Casimir Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein, who would later only narrowly miss imprisonment for the CDU's party donation scandal of a decade ago, was recruited to raise the hundreds of thousands of D-marks necessary to fund the network.

He collected from conservatives in industry, many of whom had previously supported Hitler, and who now viewed with suspicion the apparent coziness developing between Brandt and the Communists.

The first act was to open a secret 'back channel' to Kissinger who was keen to know what the Soviets were up to at all times, including their puppets in East Berlin.

The treasurer of the group was Alfred Seidl, a former Nazi who acted as the chief defence lawyer for Hitler deputy Rudolf Hess.

'In 1971 Brandt was talking about the administration of Berlin with Leonid Brezhnev in Yalta and Stauffenberg's informants were delivering secret information to the conservatives who were discussing it with Kissinger,' said Waske.

The intelligence gleaned came from eavesdropping, intercepted mail, informers and telephone taps. The Little Service ran for a decade, lavishly funded and with probably more success than the state intelligence agencies which were riddled with East German moles.

It was Helmut Kohl, who came to power in 1982, who disbanded the network. It was Kohl who promoted Angela Merkel - who grew up in East Germany - to become the party leader: now she will have serious political bullets to dodge about her party's murky past before polling day next year.

[Tracy Riddle]

^^ Interesting article. I'm in the middle of reading "The Nazi Hydra in America" by Glen Yeadon. It's really stunning how many fascists were rehabilitated and became part of the Cold War Establishment. Richard Cottrell's book on Gladio is also highly recommended.

[Adele Edisen]

No less significant in assessing influence within the foreign policy establishment is the relative proximity - and relationships - individuals have with deeply entrenched power structures, notably financial and corporate dynasties. Arguably, both Kissinger and Brzezinski are two of the most influential individuals within the foreign policy elite networks. Certainly of no detriment to their careers was the fact that both cultivated close working and personal relationships with what can be said to be America's most powerful dynasty, the Rockefeller family.

Dynastic Influence on Foreign Policy

At first glance, this may appear to be a rather obscure addition to this report, but dynastic power in modern state-capitalist societies is largely overlooked, misunderstood, or denied altogether, much like the concept of 'empire' itself. The lack of discourse on this subject - or the relegation of it to fringe 'conspiratorial' views - is not reason enough to ignore it. Far from assigning a conspiratorial or 'omnipotent' view of power to dynastic elements, it is important to place them within a social and institutional analysis, to understand the complexities and functions of dynastic influence within modern society.

Dynastic power relies upon a complex network of relationships and interactions between institutions, individuals, and ideologies. Through most of human history - in most places in the world - power was wielded by relatively few people, and often concentrated among dynastic family structures, whether ancient Egypt, imperial Rome, ancient China, the Ottoman Empire or the European monarchs spreading their empires across the globe. With the rise of state-capitalist society, dynastic power shifted from the overtly political to the financial and economic spheres. Today's main dynasties are born of corporate or banking power, maintained through family lines and extended through family ties to individuals, institutions, and policy-makers. The Rockefellers are arguably the most influential dynasty in the United States, but comparable to the Rothschilds in France and the UK, the Wallenbergs in Sweden, the Agnellis in Italy, or the Desmarais family in Canada. These families are themselves connected through institutions such as the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission, among others. The power of a corporate-financial dynasty is not a given: it must be maintained, nurtured, and strengthened, otherwise it will be overcome or made obsolete.

The Rockefeller family has existed at the center of American power for over a century. Originating with the late 19th century 'Robber Baron' industrialists, the Rockefellers established an oil empire, and subsequently a banking empire. John D. Rockefeller, who had a personal fortune surpassing $1 billion in the first decade of the 20th century, also founded the University of Chicago, and through the creation and activities of the Rockefeller Foundation (founded in 1913), helped engineer higher education and the social sciences. The Rockefeller family - largely acting through various family foundations - were also pivotal in the founding and funding of several prominent think tanks, notably the Council on Foreign Relations, the Asia Society, Trilateral Commission, the Group of Thirty, and the Bilderberg Group, among many others.

The patriarch of the Rockefeller family today is David Rockefeller, now in his late 90s. To understand the influence wielded by unelected bankers and billionaires like Rockefeller, it would be useful to simply examine the positions he has held throughout his life. From 1969 until 1980, he was the chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank and from 1981 to 1999 he was the chairman of the International Advisory Committee of Chase Manhattan, at which time it merged with another big bank to become JPMorgan Chase, of Rockefeller served as a member of the International Advisory Council from 2000 to 2005. David Rockefeller was a founding member of the Bilderberg Group in 1954, at which he remains on the Steering Committee; he is the former chairman of Rockefeller Group, Inc. (from 1981-1995), Rockefeller Center Properties (1996-2001), and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, at which he remains as an advisory trustee. He is chairman emeritus and life trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, and the founder of the David Rockefeller Fund and the International Executive Service Corps.

David Rockefeller was also the chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1970 to 1985, of which he remains to this day as honorary chairman; is chairman emeritus of the board of trustees of the University of Chicago; honorary chairman, life trustee and chairman emeritus of the Rockefeller University Council, and is the former president of the Harvard Board of Overseers. He was co-founder of the Global Philanthropists Circle, is honorary chairman of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), and is an honorary director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. David Rockefeller was also the co-founder (with Zbigniew Brzezinski) of the Trilateral Commission in 1973, where he served as North American Chairman until 1991, and has since remained as honorary chairman. He is also the founder and honorary chairman of the Americas Society and the Council of the Americas.

It should not come as a surprise, then, that upon David Rockefeller's 90th birthday celebration (held at the Council on Foreign Relations) in 2005, then-president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn delivered a speech in which he stated that, "the person who had perhaps the greatest influence on my life professionally in this country, and I'm very happy to say personally there afterwards, is David Rockefeller, who first met me at the Harvard Business School in 1957 or '58." He went on to explain that in the early 20th century United States, "as we looked at the world, a family, the Rockefeller family, decided that the issues were not just national for the United States, were not just related to the rich countries. And where, extraordinarily and amazingly, David's grandfather set up the Rockefeller Foundation, the purpose of which was to take a global view." Wolfensohn continued:

So the Rockefeller family, in this last 100 years, has contributed in a way that is quite extraordinary to the development in that period and has given ample focus to the issues of development with which I have been associated. In fact, it's fair to say that there has been no other single family influence greater than the Rockefeller's in the whole issue of globalization and in the whole issue of addressing the questions which, in some ways, are still before us today. And for that David, we're deeply grateful to you and for your own contribution in carrying these forward in the way that you did. [4]

Wolfensohn of course would be in a position to know something about the influence of the Rockefeller family. Serving as president of the World Bank from 1995 to 2005, he has since founded his own private firm, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC., was been a longtime member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group, an honorary trustee of the Brookings Institution, a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Wolfensohn's father, Hyman, was employed by James Armand de Rothschild of the Rothschild banking dynasty (after whom James was named), and taught the young Wolfensohn how to "cultivate mentors, friends and contacts of influence."[5] In his autobiography of 2002, Memoirs, David Rockefeller himself wrote:

For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure--one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it. [6]

In the United States, the Rockefeller family has maintained a network of influence through financial, corporate, educational, cultural, and political spheres. It serves as a logical extension of dynastic influence to cultivate relationships among the foreign policy elite of the U.S., notably the likes of Kissinger and Brzezinski.

(The Rockefeller Family - murderers of the Ludlow, Colorado, coal miners and their wives and children in 1914. - AE)

Adele

[Jan Klimkowski]

^^ Interesting article. I'm in the middle of reading "The Nazi Hydra in America" by Glen Yeadon. It's really stunning how many fascists were rehabilitated and became part of the Cold War Establishment. Richard Cottrell's book on Gladio is also highly recommended.

Tracy - this is the Gladio forum.

[Lauren Johnson]

by Andrew Gavin Marshall focusing on the Rockefellers. Third in the Global Power Project Series

The Global Power Project, an investigative series produced by Occupy.com, aims to identify and connect the worldwide institutions and individuals who comprise today's global power oligarchy. In Part 2, which appeared last week, I discussed some of the dominant institutions that have facilitated and have in turn been supported by the development of this oligarchic class. In this third part, I examine the dynastic influence wielded by prominent corporate and financial families. This is not a study of wealth, but a study of power.
Also See: Global Power Project, Part 1: Exposing the Transnational Capitalist Class and Global Power Project, Part 2: Identifying the Institutions of Control

Dynastic power, embedded in the institution of "family," has been with humanity for as long as empire: ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, the European empires and beyond. With the rise of capitalism, finance and corporations, formal political dynasties became less relevant to the expansion and maintenance of power and empire. Instead, dynastic power was and remains largely wielded in the corporate and financial sectors.

In Europe, the Rothschild banking dynasty was the unparalleled family power of the 19th century, and has continued as a major influence in Britain, France and elsewhere well into the 20th and 21st centuries. Baron Benjamin de Rothschild, considered to be the "world's richest Rothschild today," told the Israeli publication Ha'aretz in 2010, "We have an obligation to continue the dynasty." And indeed, the Rothschild banks and family are doing well. It recently decided to bring together the French and British banking assets under one roof, and the dynasty has even been expanding its influence in merchant banking in London. The Rothschild bank was also seeking to extend its presence in the United States, "to take advantage of the growing demand for independent advice from companies globally."

In the United States, the 19th century saw the rise of multiple corporate and financial dynasties, though the most lasting and still the most influential is the Rockefeller family. Initially through the Standard Oil empire, which was broken up into corporations we now know as ExxonMobil, Chevron and others, Rockefeller influence was prominent in universities (notably the University of Chicago and Harvard), in finance, with Chase Manhattan Bank (now JPMorgan Chase), in the creation and maintenance of major foundations (Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Family Fund) and in the establishment and leadership of major think tanks (Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg), all of which created access to political and social power that shaped institutions, ideologies and individuals on a vast scale.

James Wolfensohn, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, was formerly president of the World Bank, a long time member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group, and a trustee of the Brookings Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation. Wolfensohn's father served as an advisor to the Rothschilds and taught the young Wolfensohn how to "cultivate mentors, friends and contacts of influence." Upon the event of David Rockefeller's 90th birthday, celebrated at the Council on Foreign Relations in 2005, Wolfensohn described the Rockefeller patriarch as "the person who had perhaps the greatest influence on my life professionally," and added: "In fact, it's fair to say that there has been no other single family influence greater than the Rockefeller's in the whole issue of globalization."

In Canada, the Desmarais family, which owns Power Corporation, exists as the country's most influential dynasty with significant business and family ties to Canada's political elite. Through their participation, organization and leadership in prominent think tanks and industry associations, the Desmarais have become a powerful influence in shaping not only Canada but the process of globalization itself in recent decades.

There are, of course, parallel corporate and financial dynasties in countries all over the world, such as the Agnellis in Italy, the Wallenbergs in Sweden, and the still-existing monarchs in Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and beyond, who despite their "symbolic" political power wield significant financial and corporate influence. It should be no surprise that these powerful financial and corporate dynasties have substantial interaction and integration with one other. Bilderberg meetings act as a forum which very often represents dynastic influence from the Atlantic community, including the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Desmarais, Wallenbergs, Agnellis and the Dutch, Belgian and Spanish monarchies, among others. It should also be no surprise that the two arguably most influential dynasties Rothschild and Rockefeller have been steadily increasing their connections, both formal and informal.

In fact, as the Financial Times reported in May of 2012, "Two of the best-known business dynasties in Europe and the US will come together after Lord Jacob Rothschild's listed investment trust and Rockefeller Financial Services agreed to form a strategic partnership," with the Rothschild-owned RIT Capital Partners purchasing a 37% stake in the Rockefeller family's "wealth advisory and asset management group." This "transatlantic union," noted the Financial Times, "brings together David Rockefeller, 96, and Lord Rothschild, 76 two family patriarchs whose personal relationship spans five decades."

To understand the kind of influence and power we're talking about, it is helpful to briefly examine the biography -- dare we refer to it as a CV -- of one of the global patriarchs himself, David Rockefeller. Rockefeller was Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank from 1969 to 1980, after which he remained Chairman of the International Advisory Committee of Chase Manhattan, from 1981 to 1999, and subsequently a member of the International Advisory Council (2000-2005) when the bank merged into JPMorgan Chase.

Rockefeller was a founding member of the Bilderberg Meetings and he still holds an exclusive position on the Steering Committee's Member Advisory Group. He was the Chairman of Rockefeller Group, Inc. from 1981 to 1995, and Chairman of Rockefeller Center Properties, Inc. Trust from 1996 to 2001. David Rockefeller was also a Chairman of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, where he remains as an advisory trustee; Chairman and Life Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art; and former Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, from 1970 to 1985, where he remains as Honorary Chairman.

And it doesn't stop there. The senior Rockefeller is founder of the David Rockefeller Fund; Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago; former President of the Harvard College Board of Overseers; Honorary Chairman of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP); and he was co-founder of the Global Philanthropists Circle. Rockefeller was also the founder and former North American Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, from 1973-1991, and remains Honorary Chairman. He was the founder of the Partnership for New York City, founder and Honorary Chairman of the Americas Society and the Council of the Americas, and he currently sits as Honorary Chairman and Life Trustee and Chairman Emeritus of the Rockefeller University Council. He is an honorary director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The past and present affiliations held by this one individual span the largest bank in the United States, the most prominent national think tank, highly influential transnational think tanks and policy boards, foundations and universities. This one individual has a network of influence that includes: JPMorgan Chase, the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, University of Chicago, Rockefeller University, Harvard, and many other prominent institutions. The fact that he has held or currently holds leadership positions in these institutions, and often for several decades, is an example of the significant networks of influence that go far beyond his identity as a "banker" or "former CEO of Chase Manhattan."

When we place David Rockefeller in the context of his dynastic family's broad array of institutional engagement, and the power that his past and present family members wield, the influence becomes much greater. Dynastic power again, like class power, should not be confused with "conspiracy theory," as it does not function as a conspiracy but rather as a network of institutions, corporations, banks, think tanks and foundations with indirect political influence. They are more opportunistic than omnipotent, and are perhaps better thought of not as a few obscure families running the world but more akin to organized crime families the Mafia operating on a much larger scale.

Empire does not just happen, nor, for that matter, does "capitalism." Society is made, constructed, shaped, directed, organized and engineered. Ideas are embedded in institutions, which establish ideologies, indoctrinate individuals and implement objectives. But they are not omnipotent; they must respond to changes in the population, in public opinion and will, in the cultural evolution of humanity, in resistance to war, tyranny, oppression and impoverishment. Institutions and ideologies must adapt to changing circumstances, to technological and cultural developments, or they will become obsolete.

The population, however, must also adapt to a changing environment, technological developments, cultural attitudes, economic and social disasters, and political engagement. The population the people, both nationally and globally must work to adapt their thinking, their perspective and their understanding of power, of ideas and institutions, of the way in which society functions and the ways in which it could function.

The purpose of the Global Power Project is to provide a lens through which to view and understand power more directly not as abstract concepts of "democracy" or "capitalism," liberal or conservative, Republican or Democratic, but as a complex relationship between power and people. This research seeks to identify the individuals and institutions that wield significant power over society, nationally and globally, to help us understand who specifically has shaped and is continuing to shape the world we all live in.

Starting next week, the Global Power Project will reveal extensive research on one or more institutions at a time, selecting them based upon known or perceived influence, and examining the individuals who serve in leadership, board membership and advisory roles at those institutions, answering the questions: what are their backgrounds, what other institutions have they worked for, what other boards do they sit on, what organizations are they members of? And importantly: how is their power connected?

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/17259...-dynasties

[Lauren Johnson]

First installment in Global Power Project Series

Many now know the rhetoric of the 1% very well: the imagery of a small elite owning most of the wealth while the 99% take the table scraps. This rhetoric and imagery was made popular by the growth of the Occupy movement, so it seems appropriate that a project of Occupy.com should expand on this understanding and bring the activities of the global elite further to light.

In 2006, a UN report revealed that the world's richest 1% own 40% of the world's wealth, with those in the financial and internet sectors comprising the "super rich." More than a third of the world's super-rich live in the U.S., with roughly 27% in Japan, 6% in the U.K., and 5% in France. The world's richest 10% accounted for roughly 85% of the planet's total assets, while the bottom half of the population more than 3 billion people owned less than 1% of the world's wealth.

Looking specifically at the United States, the top 1% own more than 36% of the national wealth and more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%. Almost all of the wealth gains over the previous decade went to the top 1%. In the mid-1970s, the top 1% earned 8% of all national income; this number rose to 21% by 2010. At the highest sliver at the top, the 400 wealthiest individuals in America have more wealth than the bottom 150 million.



A 2005 report from Citigroup coined the term "plutonomy" to describe countries "where economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few." The report specifically identified the U.K., Canada, Australia and the United States as four plutonomies. Published three years before the onset of the financial crisis in 2008, the Citigroup report stated: "Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper and become a greater share of the economy in the plutonomy countries."
"The rich," said the report, "are in great shape, financially."

In early 2013, Oxfam reported that the fortunes made by the world's 100 richest people over the course of 2012 roughly $240 billion would be enough to lift the world's poorest people out of poverty four times over. In the Oxfam report, "The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt Us All," the international charity noted that in the past 20 years, the richest 1% had increased their incomes by 60%. Barbara Stocking, an Oxfam executive, noted that this type of extreme wealth is "economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive and environmentally destructive...We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many too often the reverse is true."

The report added: "In the UK, inequality is rapidly returning to levels not seen since the time of Charles Dickens. In China the top 10% now take home nearly 60% of the income. Chinese inequality levels are now similar to those in South Africa, which is now the most unequal country on Earth and significantly more unequal than at the end of apartheid." In the United States, the share of national income going to the top 1% has doubled from 10 to 20% since 1980, and for the top 0.01% in the United States, "the share of national income is above levels last seen in the 1920s."

Previously, in July of 2012, James Henry, a former chief economist at McKinsey, a major global consultancy, published a major report on tax havens for the Tax Justice Network which compiled data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the IMF and other private sector entities to reveal that the world's super-rich have hidden between $21 and $32 trillion offshore to avoid taxation.

Henry stated: "This offshore economy is large enough to have a major impact on estimates of inequality of wealth and income; on estimates of national income and debt ratios; and most importantly to have very significant negative impacts on the domestic tax bases of source' countries." John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network further commented that "Inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people... This new data shows the exact opposite has happened: for three decades extraordinary wealth has been cascading into the offshore accounts of a tiny number of super-rich."

With roughly half of the world's offshore wealth, or some $10 trillion, belonging to 92,000 of the planet's richest individuals representing not the top 1% but the top 0.001% we see a far more extreme global disparity taking shape than the one invoked by the Occupy movement. Henry commented: "The very existence of the global offshore industry, and the tax-free status of the enormous sums invested by their wealthy clients, is predicated on secrecy."

In his 2008 book, Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making, David Rothkopf, a man firmly entrenched within the institutions of global power and the elites which run them, compiled a census of roughly 6,000 individuals whom he referred to as the "superclass." They were defined not simply by their wealth, he said, but by the influence they exercised within the realms of business, finance, politics, military, culture, the arts and beyond.
Rothkopf noted: "Each member is set apart by his ability to regularly influence the lives of millions of people in multiple countries worldwide. Each actively exercises this power and often amplifies it through the development of relationships with other superclass members."

The global elite are of course not defined by their wealth alone, but through the institutional, ideological and individual connections and networks in which they wield their influence. The most obvious example of these types of institutions are the multinational banks and corporations which dominate the global economy. In the first scientific study of its kind, Swiss researchers analyzed the relationship between 43,000 transnational corporations and "identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy."

In their report, "The Network of Global Corporate Control", researchers noted that this network which they defined as "ownership" by a person or firm over another firm, whether partially or entirely "is much more unequally distributed than wealth" and that "the top ranked actors hold a control ten times bigger than what could be expected based on their wealth." The "core" of this network which consists of the world's top 737 corporations control 80% of all transnational corporations (TNCs).

Even more extreme, the top 147 transnational corporations control roughly 40% of the entire economic value of the world's TNCs, forming their own network known as the "super-entity." The super-entity conglomerates all control each other, and thus control a significant portion of the rest of the world's corporations with the "core" of the global corporate network consisting primarily of financial corporations and intermediaries.

In December of 2011, the former deputy secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration, Roger Altman, wrote an article for the Financial Times in which he described financial markets as "a global supra-government" which can "oust entrenched regimes... force austerity, banking bail-outs and other major policy changes." Altman said bluntly that the influence of this entity "dwarfs multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund" as "they have become the most powerful force on earth."

With the formation of this "super-entity" a veritable global supra-government made up of the world's largest banks and corporations exerting immense influence over all other corporations, a new global class structure has evolved. It is this rarefied group of individuals and firms, and the relations they hold with one another, that we wish to further understand.
According to the 2012 report, "Corporate Clout Distributed: The Influence of the World's Largest 100 Economic Entities," of the world's 100 largest economic entities in 2010, 42% were corporations while the rest were governments. Among the largest 150 economic entities, 58% were corporations. Wal-Mart was the largest corporation in 2010 and the 25th largest economic entity on earth, with greater revenue than the GDPs of no less than 171 countries.

According to the Fortune Global 500 list of corporations for 2011, Royal Dutch Shell next became the largest conglomerate on earth, followed by Exxon, Wal-Mart, and BP. The Global 500 made record revenue in 2011 totaling some $29.5 trillion more than a 13% increase from 2010.

With such massive wealth and power held by these institutions and "networks" of corporations, those individuals who sit on the boards, executive committees and advisory groups to the largest corporations and banks wield significant influence on their own. But their influence does not stand in isolation from other elites, nor do the institutions of banks and corporations function in isolation from other entities such as state, educational, cultural or media institutions.

Largely facilitated by the cross-membership that exists between boards of corporations, think tanks, foundations, educational institutions and advisory groups not to mention the continual "revolving door" between the state and corporate sectors these elites become a highly integrated, organized and evolved social group. This is as true for the formation of national elites as it is for transnational, or global, elites.

The rise of corporations and banks to a truly global scale what is popularly referred to as the process of "globalization" was facilitated by the growth of other transnational networks and institutions such as think tanks and foundations, which sought to facilitate these ideological and institutional structures of globalization. A wealth of research and analysis has been undertaken in academic literature over the past couple of decades to understand the development of this phenomenon, examining the emergence of what is often referred to as the "Transnational Capitalist Class" (TCC). In various political science and sociology journals, researchers and academics reject a conspiratorial thesis and instead advance a social analysis of what is viewed as a powerful social system and group.

As Val Burris and Clifford L. Staples argued in an article for the International Journal of Comparative Sociology (Vol. 53, No. 4, 2012), "as transnational corporations become increasingly global in their operations, the elites who own and control those corporations will also cease to be organized or divided along national lines." They added: "We are witnessing the formation of a transnational capitalist class' (TCC) whose social networks, affiliations, and identities will no longer be embedded primarily in the roles they occupy as citizens of specific nations." To properly understand this TCC, it is necessary to study what the authors call "interlocking directorates," defined as "the structure of interpersonal or interorganizational relations that is created whenever a director of one corporation sits on the governing board of another corporation."

The growth of "interlocking directorates" is primarily confined to European and North American conglomerates, whereas those in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East largely remain "isolated from the global interlock network." Thus, the "transnationalization" of corporate directorates and, ultimately, of global class structures "is more a manifestation of the process of European integration or, perhaps, of the emergence of a North Atlantic ruling class."

The conclusion of these researchers was that the ruling class is not "global" as such, but rather "a supra-national capitalist class that has gone a considerable way toward transcending national divisions," notably in the industrialized countries of Western Europe and North America; in their words, "the regional locus of transnational class formation is more accurately described as the North Atlantic region." However, with the rise of the "East" notably the economic might of Japan, China, India, and other East Asian nations the interlocks and interconnections among elites are likely to expand as various other networks of institutions seek to integrate these regions.

The influence wielded by banks and corporations is not simply through their direct wealth or operations, but through the affiliations, interactions and integration by those who run the institutions with political and social elites, both nationally and globally. While we can identify a global elite as a wealth percentage (the top 1% or, more accurately, the top 0.001%), this does not account for the more indirect and institutionalized influence that corporate and financial leaders exert over politics and society as a whole.

To further understand this, we must identify and explore the dominant institutions which facilitate the integration of these elites from an array of corporations, banks, academia, the media, military, intelligence, political and cultural spheres. This will be the subject of the second installment in the series, appearing next week.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16965...list-class

[Lauren Johnson]

Second in the Global Power Project Series

The Global Power Project, an investigative series produced by Occupy.com, aims to identify and connect the worldwide institutions and individuals who comprise today's global power oligarchy. In Part 1, which appeared last week, I provided an overview examining who and what constitute the global ruling elite often referred to as the Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC). In this second part, I will attempt to identify some of the key, dominant institutions that have facilitated and have in turn been supported by the development of this oligarchic class. This is not a study of wealth, but a study of power.

In an article for the journal International Sociology, William K. Carroll and Jean Philippe Sapinski examined the relationship between the corporate elite and the emergence of a "transnational policy-planning network," beginning with its formation in the decades following World War II and speeding up in the 1970s with the creation of "global policy groups" and think tanks such as the World Economic Forum, in 1971, and the Trilateral Commission, in 1973, among many others.

The function of such institutions was to help mobilize and integrate the corporate elite beyond national borders, constructing a politically "organized minority." These policy-planning organizations came to exist as "venues for discussion, strategic planning, discourse production and consensus formation on specific issues," as well as "places where responses to crises of legitimacy are crafted," such as managing economic, political, or environmental crises where elite interests might be threatened. These groups also often acted as "advocates for specific projects of integration, often on a regional basis." Perhaps most importantly, the organizations "provide bridges connecting business elites to political actors (heads of states, politicians, high-ranking public servants) and elites and organic intellectuals in other fields (international organizations, military, media, academia)."

One important industry association, according to researchers Carroll and Carson in the journal Global Networks (Vol. 3, No. 1, 2003), is the International Chamber of Commerce. Launched by investment bankers in 1919, immediately following WWI, the Paris-based Chamber groups roughly 7,000 member corporations together across 130 countries, adhering to largely conservative, "free market" ideology. The "primary function" of the ICC, write Carroll and Carson, "is to institutionalize an international business perspective by providing a forum where capitalists and related professionals... can assemble and forge a common international policy framework."

Another policy group with outsized global influence is the Bilderberg group, founded between 1952 and 1954, which provided "a context for more comprehensive international capitalist coordination and planning." Bringing together roughly 130 elites from Western Europe and North America at annual closed meetings, "Bilderberg conferences have furnished a confidential platform for corporate, political, intellectual, military and even trade-union elites from the North Atlantic heartland to reach mutual understanding."

As Valerie Aubourg examined in an article for the journal Intelligence and National Security (Vol. 18, No. 2, 2003), the Bilderberg meetings were organized largely at the initiative of a handful of European elites, with heavy financial backing from select American institutions including the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the CIA. The meetings incorporate leadership from the most prominent national think tanks, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment and others from across the North Atlantic community.'

Hugh Wilford, writing in the journal Diplomacy & Statecraft (Vol. 14, No. 3, 2003), identified major philanthropic foundations such as the Rockefeller, Ford, and Carnegie foundations as not only major sources of funding but also providers for much of the leadership of the Bilderberg meetings, which saw the participation of major industrial and financial firms in line with those foundations (David Rockefeller of Chase Manhattan is a good example). Bilderberg was a major force in helping to create the political, economic and strategic consensus behind constructing a common European market.

With the support of these major foundations and their leadership, the Bilderberg meetings became a powerful global tool of the elites, not only in creating the European Union but in designing the process of globalization itself. Will Hutton, a former Bilderberg member, once referred to the group as "the high priests of globalization," and a former Bilderberg steering committee member, Denis Healey, once noted: "To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair...we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."

The large industrial foundations have played a truly profound and largely overlooked role in the shaping of modern society. The Robber Baron' industrial fortunes of the late 19th century those of Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harriman, Vanderbilt, etc. sought to shape a new order in which they would maintain a dominant influence throughout society. They founded major American universities (often named after themselves) such as Vanderbilt, or the University of Chicago which was founded by John D. Rockefeller.

It was through their institutions that they sought to produce new elites to manage a new society, atop of which they sat. These universities became the harbingers of modern social sciences, seeking to "reform" society to fit the needs of those who dominated it; to engage in social engineering with the purpose of social control. It was in this context that the Carnegie Corporation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and later the Ford Foundation and others were founded: as engines of social engineering. One of their principal aims was to shape the development of the social sciences and their exportation around the world to other industrial and imperial powers like Great Britain, and beyond. The social sciences were to facilitate the "scientific management" of society, and the foundations were the patrons of "social control."

The Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford foundations were instrumental in providing funding, organization and personnel for the development of major American and international think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations, which became essential to the emergence of a dominant and entrenched U.S. business class linking academia, political, strategic, corporate and financial elites. The Rockefeller and Ford foundations in particular constructed the field of modern political science and "Area Studies" with a view to educating a class of people who would be prepared to help manage a global empire.

They were also prominent in developing the educational system for black Americans designed to keep them relegated to labor and "vocational" training. They helped found many prominent universities in Africa, Asia and Latin America to train indigenous elites with a "Western" education in the social sciences, to ensure continuity between a domestic and international elite, between core and periphery, empire and protectorate.

Another major policy planning group is the Trilateral Commission, created out of the Bilderberg meetings as a separate transnational think tank and founded by Chase Manhattan CEO (and Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations) David Rockefeller along with academic-turned-policymaker Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1973. The Trilateral Commission linked the elites from Western Europe, North America and Japan (hence "trilateral"), and it now also includes members from China, India and a range of other Pacific-East Asian countries.

Consisting of a membership of roughly 350 individuals from finance, corporations, media, think tanks, foundations, academia and political circles, the Trilateral Commission (TC) has been immensely influential as a forum facilitating the development and integration of a "transnational elite." The aim of the TC was "to foster closer cooperation among these core industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system."

The most famous report issued by the Trilateral Commission in the mid-1970s suggested that due to the popular activism of the 1960s, there was a "crisis of democracy" that it defined as an "excess of democracy," which needed to be reduced in order for "democracy to function effectively." According to the Trilateral Commission, what was needed was increased "apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some individuals and groups" to counter the "crisis" being caused by "a highly educated, mobilized, and participant society."

Moving elsewhere, the World Economic Forum, founded in 1971, convenes annually in Davos, Switzerland and was originally designed "to secure the patronage of the Commission of European Communities, as well as the encouragement of Europe's industry associations" and "to discuss European strategy in an international marketplace." The WEF has since expanded its membership and mandate, as Carroll and Carson noted, "organized around a highly elite core of transnational capitalists (the 'Foundation Membership') which it currently limits to '1000 of the foremost global enterprises'." The meetings include prominent individuals from the scientific community, academics, the media, NGOs and many other policy groups.

Another major policy planning group emerged in the mid-1990s with an increased focus on environmental issues, called the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), which "instantly became the pre-eminent business voice on the environment" with a 1997 membership of 123 top corporate executives, tasked with bringing the "voice" of big business to the process of international efforts to address environmental concerns (and thus, to secure their own interests).

Among other prominent think tanks and policy-planning boards helping to facilitate and integrate a transnational network of elites are many nation-based organizations, particularly in the United States, such as with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), among many others. The advisory boards to these organizations provide an important forum through which transnational elites may help to influence the policies of many separate nations, and most importantly, the world's most powerful nation: the United States.
The Council on Foreign Relations, founded in 1921, refers to itself as "an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher," with roughly 4,700 members. It is largely based in New York with affiliate offices in Washington D.C. and elsewhere. The CFR is, and has been, at the heart of the American foreign policy establishment, bringing together elites from academia, government, the media, intelligence, military, financial and corporate institutions.
The CFR worked in close cooperation with the U.S. government during World War II to design the post-War world over which America would reign supreme. The Council was active in establishing the "Grand Areas" of the American Empire, and in maintaining extensive influence over the foreign policy of the United States.

As Carroll and Carson noted, there is a prominent relationship between those individuals who sit on multiple corporate boards and those who sit on the boards of prominent national and transnational policy-planning groups, "suggesting a highly centralized corporate-policy network."

Studying 622 corporate directors and 302 organizations (five of which were the major policy-planning groups: ICC, Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission, World Economic Forum and World Business Council for Sustainable Development), Carroll and Carson assessed this network of transnational elites with data leading up to 1996, and concluded: "The international network is primarily a configuration of national corporate networks, integrated for the most part through the affiliations of a few dozen individuals who either hold transnational corporate directorships or serve on two or more policy boards."

Out of the sample of 622 individuals, they found roughly 105 individuals (94 "transnational corporate linkers" and 11 others "whose corporate affiliations are not transnational but who sit on multiple global policy boards") making up "the most immediate structural contributions to transnational class formation." At the "core" of this network were 17 corporate directors, primarily European and North American, largely linked by the transnational policy groups, with the Trilateral Commission as "the most centrally positioned." This network, they noted, "is highly centralized in terms of the individuals and organizations that participate in it."

In undertaking a follow-up study of data between 1996 and 2006, published in the journal International Sociology (Vol. 25, No. 4, 2010), Carroll and Sapinski expanded the number of policy-planning groups from five to 11, including the original five (ICC, Bilderberg, TC, WEF, and WBCSD), but adding to them the Council on Foreign Relations (through its International Advisory Board), the UN Global Compact (through its advisory board), the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), founded in 1983, the EU-Japan Business Round Table, the Transatlantic Business Dialogue, and the North American Competitiveness Council.

The results of their research found that among the corporate directors, "policy-board membership has shifted towards the transnationalists, who come to comprise a larger segment of the global corporate elite," and that there was a growing group of elites "made up of individuals with one or more transnational policy-board affiliations." As Carroll and Sapinski concluded:

"The corporate-policy network is highly centralized, at both the level of individuals and that of organizations. Its inner circle is a tightly interwoven ensemble of politically active business leaders; its organizational core includes the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Conference, the European Round Table of Industrialists and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, surrounded by other policy boards and by the directorates of leading industrial corporations and financial institutions based in capitalism's core regions."

Organizations like the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT) are not think tanks, but rather, industry organizations (exclusively representing the interests and individuals of major corporations), wielding significant influence over political and social elites. As Bastiaan van Apeldoorn wrote in the journal New Political Economy (Vol. 5, No. 2, 2000), the ERT "developed into an elite platform for an emergent European transnational capitalist class from which it can formulate a common strategy and on the basis of that strategy seek to shape European socioeconomic governance through its privileged access to the European institutions."

In 1983, the ERT was formed as an organization of 17 major European industrialists (which has since expanded to several dozen members), with the proclaimed objective being "to revitalize European industry and make it competitive again, and to speed up the process of unification of the European common market." Wisse Dekker, former Chairman of the ERT, once stated: "I would consider the Round Table to be more than a lobby group as it helps to shape policies. The Round Table's relationship with Brussels [the EU] is one of strong co-operation. It is a dialogue which often begins at a very early stage in the development of policies and directives."

The ERT was a central institution in the re-launching of European integration from the 1980s onward, and as former European Commissioner (and former ERT member) Peter Sutherland stated, "one can argue that the whole completion of the internal market project was initiated not by governments but by the Round Table, and by members of it... And I think it played a fairly consistent role subsequently in dialoguing with the Commission on practical steps to implement market liberalization." Sutherland also explained that the ERT and its members "have to be at the highest levels of companies and virtually all of them have unimpeded access to government leaders because of the position of their companies... So, by definition, each member of the ERT has access at the highest level to government."

Other notable industry associations include the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), formerly called the Business Council on National Issues (BCNI), a group comprised of Canada's top 150 CEOs who were a major force for the promotion and implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The CCCE remains one of the most influential "interest groups" in Canada.

In the United States there are prominent industry associations like the Business Council, the Business Roundtable, and the Financial Services Forum. The Business Council describes itself as "a voluntary association of business leaders whose members meet several times a year for the free exchange of ideas both among themselves and with thought leaders from many sectors."

Likewise, the Business Roundtable describes itself as "an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with more than $7.3 trillion in annual revenues," which believes that "businesses should play an active and effective role in the formation of public policy."

Finally, the Financial Services Forum proclaims itself to be "a non-partisan financial and economic policy organization" which aims "to pursue policies that encourage savings and investment, promote an open and competitive global marketplace, and ensure the opportunity of people everywhere to participate fully and productively in the 21st-century global economy."

These are among some of the many institutions which will be researched and examined in greater detail throughout the Global Power Project. In the next installment, I will be examining not only the societal and economic results of these dominant institutions of power, but the specific individuals and in some cases family dynasties that wield significant influence nationally and globally.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/17096-glo...of-control

[Magda Hassan]

I really love Andrew Gavin Marshall's work. I have one of his here about the Canadian families too some where. Great stuff. Thanks for posting Lauren.