|
Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making | 
| Author: David Rothkopf
Creator: Patrick Lawlor
Publisher: Tantor Media
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $23.36
You Save: $16.63 (42%)
New (21) Used (3) from $22.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 244023
Format: Audiobook, Cd
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 13
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 6.5 x 5.6 x 1.1
ISBN: 1400106028
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.5209045
EAN: 9781400106028
ASIN: 1400106028
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new Item. CD, DVD, Book, VHS more than 400 000 titles to choose from. ALL days Low Price !
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Superclass 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.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Embarrassing July 9, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
David Rothkopf, an ex-director of Kissinger Associates, has written a revealing book. He notes that a tiny group of about 6,000 people has vastly more power than any other group on the planet, and that the richest 1,000 have more than twice the wealth of the poorest 2.5 billion.
This class comprises mostly top businessmen, mainly from the USA and the EU. Concentration of capital leads to fewer and richer CEOs. Giant firms, banks and private equity companies are this class's base. It advances its interests through self-regulation, liberalised markets, privatisation, and the free movement of capital, labour and services. Increasingly, private firms now decide what public, elected bodies used to decide.
This class pretends to help solve AIDS and Africa's poverty by throwing money at the problems - but who does the work of doctoring and nursing, of planting and harvesting? Not Bill Gates or George Soros!
What drives this accumulation of wealth at one pole and of poverty at the other? Could there be some connection? Rothkopf never thinks to ask where all this wealth comes from.
He notes that some `defend elites for their role in globalization, believing that by globalizing they will ultimately help create a more equitable system'. But this globalising has created this hugely unjust system. How could it turn into its opposite and create a fairer society?
He argues, of course, against national sovereignty, and praises all capital's favoured bodies - the EU, the IMF, the World Bank, etc. But far from analysing what is happening and why, Rothkopf tells us little stories about his brief chats with the rich and famous. His favourite meeting is the annual World Economic Forum at Davos, where he can fawn on the godlike figures of Merkel, Sarkozy, Brown and Straw.
This is an embarrassing book, like a long Hello! Magazine without the pictures. Preparing it doubtless extended Mr Rothkopf's social network, but it reveals little of the class he dotes on, while showing all too clearly that he has the mind and morals of a groupie.
 Interesting (and Possibly Also Accurate?) July 9, 2008
This book provides an interesting description of a purported global "superclass," the top roughly 6,000 people in the world (or 1 in a million!) who are distinguished by their global power. I say "purported" because I don't have the access to reliably judge whether the author has painted an accurate picture, but I can at least say that the picture appears plausible and the author does seem fairly well connected.
The author goes beyond description to provide some analysis and prediction also, but I would say that this is a weaker element of the book because it's relatively superficial and sketchy, rather than based on any meaningful attempt at modeling or any other form of reasonably rigorous analysis.
At an evaluative and normative level, the author ranges from being appreciative and supportive of the superclass at times, all the way to being (appropriately) condemning and quite worried, but he mostly tries to stay somewhat detached and attempts to at least give the appearance of objectivity. Perhaps this is a reasonable stance, given that it would probably be rather simplistic to view the superclass as "all good" or "all bad" and there's also value in allowing the reader to reach his or her own conclusions.
One negative of the book is that, at least for me, the book was too long relative to its content, so it tended to drag on at times. I think that a shorter and more focused book would have worked better. However, the book was still interesting and well-written enough that I finished it without too much effort, and I came away glad that I read it.
Recommended for anyone interested in what makes the human world tick on a global level, but of course read other books on the topic also to get different perspectives.
Amazing facts June 23, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is an interesting read. It contains many amazing facts. Among them are:
- in 2006, the top 10% worldwide owned 85% of global wealth
- the top 2% own 50%
- the top 1% own 40%
- the bottom 50% barely own 1% of global wealth
That's amazing. We could fix many of the world's problems for very little - if the political systems of the areas that need help would cooperate.
We Need Superheroes June 19, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Rothkopf focuses this book on the so-called Superclass members of the world today (a number he pins at six thousand, making each literally one in a million) and the reality they are creating for the rest of us. These Superclass members span the world of business and finance, government and politics, religion and philanthropy, arts and technology and any other industry out there, each with the power and resources to shape the current world and the future we will come to live in. While a full list of Superclass members would have been interesting, the author purposely omits one, claiming that it would be outdated as soon as released. But he does list several examples of the Superclass and where and how they operate based on his many interviews and fascinating career.
Elites and inequality among societies have existed since the beginning of time, but Rothkopf argues that never before has the elite pool been as global, widely distributed and diverse as today. What also separates the elites of today is that the majority of them did not inherit their wealth and power, but rather earned it through hard work and luck, a stark difference to the elites in centuries past. Whether meeting in boardrooms or at the WEF in Davos, these elites are the few that truly could solve the crucial problems the world presently faces. Spanning across the public and private sector, the question is how these elites will go about seeking understanding and global resolutions, if at all. The Clinton Global Initiative and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have shown they're serious about change. But we need more. In an era where a small sliver of people control more than half of the world's wealth and resources, is a backlash from the non-elites inevitable? Will the Superclass continue to further and protect only their interests, or will they see that promoting the interest of many is the greatest good they could ever do with the resources and influence they have been fortunate to obtain? The twenty-first century awaits the Superclass to become true superheroes.
 The Top 6,000 June 5, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
When C. Wright Mills investigated the power structure of the US in the 1950s and published his findings in his landmark work The Power Elite, the world was a much simpler place. Politically and economically it was a collection of more or less self-contained nation states. Although there was cross-border trade, it represented only a small percentage of national GDPs. Nation states as such had there ruling classes, and those classes, when they were not looking out for themselves, looked out after the lower classes that sustained them. This, says David Rothkopf, is no longer the case.
Globalization has created new centers of power outside the confines of the nation state, and by the same token a new power elite. Rothkopf calls this new elite the "superclass." His previous work was called Ruling the World, in which he interviewed the top 150 people running the US foreign policy establishment. He informed us that every US national security advisor since the Eisenhower period has either worked for or with Henry Kissinger. Rothkopf himself has worked with Kissinger and is now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, so he is no stranger to the new global elite.
Who is in the superclass and what makes them super? Out of a world population of 6 billion, the author narrows it down to the top 6,000. The requirements for being in this class are never clear. Being super rich is helpful; the richest 1% of the population own about 40% of the world's wealth. That, however, may not be sufficient; one must also be influential. There are CEOs and financers who run global companies, as well as leaders of major countries and people who run international organizations. He also includes artists and celebrities such as Paolo Coelho, Bono, and Angelina Jolie. And interestingly enough, he includes leaders of international criminal gangs and terrorist groups. If one has read Philip Bobbitt's Terror and Consent : The Wars for the Twenty-First Century, this is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
No doubt the superclass, each member in his or her own way, is trying to set a global political and economic agenda, but is this a unified agenda? The heads of state, CEOs, terrorists, and celebrities all have different interests, they can hardly be called a class. The only thing they have in common is that they have done well with the status quo. Rothkopf fails to notice that the weakening of the nation state also disperses the power of the elites. The new global elites have less hard power than the old national elites. The have name recognition and they make lots of money, but they are much more limited in their capacities to get things done. (Bill Clinton made over $100 million in the last 7 years, but just how influential was he and aid organizaton during this time?)
It is not only frightening that the superclass controls so much wealth, it is also frightening that they don't actually have things in control. The global economy is more like a rudderless ship. These elites don't really rule the world, but they've made a fortune pretending that they do.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
