Global Giants: American Empire and Transnational Capital — Maximilian C. Forte

Review of Giants: The Global Power Elite by Peter Phillips (Introduction by William I. Robinson). New York: Seven Stories Press, 2018. LCCN 2018017493; ISBN 9781609808716 (pbk.); ISBN 9781609808723 (ebook); 353 pps.

Giants: The Global Power Elite, by Peter M. Phillips, Professor of Political Sociology at Sonoma State University, opens with a stated intention of following in the tradition C. Wright Mills’ The Power Elite. This book is clearly meant to be a contemporary update and expansion of Mills’ work, such that the “power elite” now becomes the global power elite (GPE) in Phillips’ volume—and central to the idea of a global power elite is the transnational capitalist class that was at the core of the theorization of Leslie Sklair. One of the most important features of this book, in my view, is that it overcomes the unproductive dichotomy that continues to silently inform many academic and political debates on this question: is the contemporary world order one dominated by US imperialism or transnational capital? Phillips’ answer is productive (even if I do not entirely agree): transnational capital has acquired US power and uses the power of the US state to further its aims, protect its interests, and enforce its agenda. Where I differ, the difference is a relatively slight matter of emphasis: Phillips’ model is largely correct, but it is also important to remember that the wealthiest, most numerous, and most powerful membership of the “transnational” capitalist class is in fact American.

This is the basis of neoliberalism, as neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism regarding the periphery and neo-feudalism in relation to the core, as a socio-political theory that is grounded in the dominance of economic liberalism understood as contemporary capitalism over social liberalism (equality before the law) and political liberalism (democracy as governance of, by and for the people.

The centrepiece of this work is its detailed exposition of the 389 individuals who constitute the core of “the policy planning nongovernmental networks that manage, facilitate, and protect the continued concentration of global capital” (p. 10).

Putting names and faces on the abstractions.

Zero Anthropology
Global Giants: American Empire and Transnational Capital
Maximilian C. Forte

Who Rules the World? A Portrait of the Global Leadership Class — John Gerring, Erzen Oncel, Kevin Morrison, and Daniel Pemstein

Empirical study of global elites.

Download PDF at link.

Notice that the title assumes a social structure based on class and class differences. This is SOP in sociology; yet, the significance of class is denied in conventional economics, if not also the existence of class structure and even society as a meaningful concept.

Cambridge University
Who Rules the World? A Portrait of the Global Leadership Class

John Gerring, Erzen Oncel, Kevin Morrison, and Daniel Pemstein

David F. Ruccio — Trust this!

If anything, the Greek people are the ones who have learned they can’t trust the governments in power in the rest of Europe to do anything other than extract an enormous tribute—in the form of “extensive mental waterboarding” and continued austerity measures—in order to come up with the necessary funds to restore the banking system and give the country some breathing room.

As a have said many times in the comments, "loss of trust" means that Greece must "regain trust" by foregoing sovereign rule that marginalizes the "leftist" government,

• making draconian cuts to social spending, 
• shrinking government, 
• undercutting labor bargaining power, 
• and privatizing public assets. 

Then after "trust" has been resorted, a relief package may be considered, but not before.

This is economic and financial warfare. The choice is either to agree or be destroyed economically and financially.

Now it is becoming clear what the EZ is really about behind the façade of integration. It's just another naked power grab.

Occasional Links & Commentary
Trust this!
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics University of Notre Dame Notre Dame

Mikhail Khazin — The clash of Western elites

Because it is a somewhat literal translation the English is a bit stylized. But worth reading for this analyst's assessment of the issues that Western elites now face in a historical context.

In general, the elite is not something "especially good" [meritocracy], but a group of people who can make decisions on the fate of society. The reasons for such opportunities (property ownership, administrative power, military power and so on) can be different at first stage, then they intertwine, but the main criterion - is decision making. If there is no consensus on the adoption of the most important strategic decisions, then society is doomed for an unenviable fate, including a possibility of a civil war. 

There are many examples. These are the bourgeois revolutions of the XVII-XIX centuries, the 1930-ies in the USSR, clashes in the Soviet republics at the turn of the 1990-ies of the last century, and so on and so forth. Since such scenarios are best avoided, the elites always create several fundamentally important mechanisms..... 

The first - is a consensus system. In particular, in the "Western" global project there are many such institutions .... 

The second institute [institution] - is propaganda. It transmits the consensus policies to the society, to counter and offset dissent. Actually, anti-elite (i.e. the part of society that is fundamentally not satisfied with the existing order), always exists, the goal is to keep it in a box and not allow serious support from the outside. 

The third institute is "security". That is a system of suppression of potential anti-elite groups and movements. It operates in many ways - from "soft" suppression of dissent (in the U.S., for example, potentially dissenting voices are not allowed to make a career) to harsh crack down..... 

Note that the second and third instrument operate only in the presence of consensus in the elites on the path of development of the country. If there is no such consensus, the system goes off the rails. We saw this in the late 80's - early 90-ies, and can see it now. Our elite in the 2000s realized that just "security" is insufficient, there is a need for a positive ideology, however, all attempts to create it without touching the corrupt oligarchic system did not lead to success.... 

In conclusion, it can be noted that the main problem of the modern elite of the "Western" project is that the internal division of this elite destroys the two main mechanisms of any state: system-founding ideology and a system of political security.

Fort Russ
The clash of Western elites
Mikhail Khazin, Izborsky Club
Translated by Kristina Rus

The New Corrupt Elite That Is Running Our Economy — Lynn Parramore interviews Janine Wedel

Social anthropologist Janine Wedel, author, most recently, of Unaccountable: How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt Our Finances, Freedom, and Security, has spent decades getting to the bottom of how powerful people wield influence. In her view, old ways of talking about formal systems of power and corruption don't begin to capture new realities. Truth and transparency, she warns, have devolved into performance art. The buck stops nowhere.

AlterNet
The New Corrupt Elite That Is Running Our Economy
Lynn Parramore interviews Janine Wedel

Ezra Klein — Krugman: soaring inequality isn’t about education; it’s about power

Krugman lays the ""p"-word on the table.

"All the big gains are going to a tiny group of individuals holding strategic positions in corporate suites or astride the crossroads of finance," writes Krugman. "Rising inequality isn’t about who has the knowledge; it’s about who has the power."

VOX
Krugman: soaring inequality isn’t about education; it’s about power
Ezra Klein

Noam Chomsky — The System We Have Now Is Radically Anti-Democratic

Well, I think we can draw many very good lessons from the early period of the Industrial Revolution. It was, of course, earlier in England, but let's take here in the United States. The Industrial Revolution took off right around here, eastern Massachusetts, mid 19th century. This was a period when independent farmers were being driven into the industrial system--men and women, incidentally, women from the farms, so-called factory girls--and they bitterly resented it. It was a period of a very free press, the most in the history of the country. There was a wide variety of journals, ethnic, labor, or others. And when you read them, they're pretty fascinating.

The people driven into the industrial system regarded it as an attack on their personal dignity, on their rights as human beings. They were free human beings who were being forced into what they called wage slavery, which they regarded as not very different from chattel slavery. In fact, this was such a popular view that it was actually a slogan of the Republican Party, that the only difference between working for a wage and being a slave is that working for a wage is supposedly temporary--pretty soon you'll be free. Other than that, they're not different.

And they bitterly resented the fact that the industrial system was even taking away their rich cultural life. And the cultural life was rich. You know, there are by now studies of the British working class and the American working class, and they were part of high culture of the day. Actually, I remembered this as late as the 1930s with my own family, you know, sort of unemployed working-class, and they said, this is being taken away from us, we're being forced to be something like slaves. They argued that if you're, say, a journeyman, a craftsman, and you sell your product, you're selling what you produced. If you're a wage earner, you're selling yourself, which is deeply offensive. They condemned what they called the new spirit of the age: gain wealth, forgetting all but self. Sounds familiar.

And it was extremely radical. It was combined with the most radical democratic movement in American history, the early populist movement--radical farmers. It began in Texas, spread into the Midwest--enormous movement of farmers who wanted to free themselves from the domination by the Northeastern bankers and capitalists, guys that ran the markets, you know, sort of forced them to sell what they produced on credit and squeeze them with credit and so on. They went on to develop their own banks, their own cooperatives. They started to link up with the Knights of Labor--major labor movement which held that, as they put it, those who work in the mills ought to own them, that it should be a free, democratic society.

These were very powerful movements. By the 1890s, you know, workers were taking over towns and running them in Western Pennsylvania. Homestead was a famous case. Well, they were crushed by force. It took some time. Sort of the final blow was Woodrow Wilson's red scare right after the First World War, which virtually crushed the labor movement.

At the same time, in the early 19th century, the business world recognized, both in England and the United States, that sufficient freedom had been won so that they could no longer control people just by violence. They had to turn to new means of control. The obvious ones were control of opinions and attitudes. That's the origins of the massive public relations industry, which is explicitly dedicated to controlling minds and attitudes.

AlterNet
Chomsky: The System We Have Now Is Radically Anti-Democratic

Chris Hedges interviews Noam Chomsky

Robin Broad — Governments and Activists are Fighting the Corporate “Right” to Sue Governments

This post is drawn from a new article regular TCB contributor Robin Broad wrote with John Cavanagh, “A Strategic Fight Against Corporate Rule,” The Nation, February 3, 2014.

TripleCrisis
Governments and Activists are Fighting the Corporate “Right” to Sue Governments
Robin Broad

Elias Isquith — GOP donors threaten rebellion over shutdown

The ongoing government shutdown may be the the product of months of planning by the conservative grass-roots, but not everyone in the GOP is happy with the result.

According to a new report from the Washington Post, the Republican Party’s donor class is becoming increasingly uneasy with the government shutdown strategy and the ascendant Tea Party faction behind it, to the point that some donors may curtail their usual level of fundraising for the 2014 election....

“There are a lot of major donors who feel that until the Republican party can field people who have a vested opinion of what to do and to do it in a prompt and efficient way, we’re going to withhold giving money,” [former Republican National Committee finance chairman Al Hoffman Jr.] said.

Salon
GOP donors threaten rebellion over shutdown
Elias Isquith

The GOP power elite is deeply divided over strategy.

Matias Vernengo — Crooks, Liars, Idiots, and Plutocrats

However, it would be a mistake to conclude that we have been dominated by a group of rogue and irrational idiots hell-bent on destroying Western Civilization in the name of Christian values and some crazy, ill-defined notion of freedom. It is important to note that over the last two years the radical elements within the GOP have actually achieved something. They have consolidated a contractionary fiscal stance, barring any possibility of the fiscal expansion that we need for a healthy recovery. They play in the United States the same role that the Troika (European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund) plays in Europe, and that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has traditionally played in developing countries. And austerity is at the service not only of cutting expenses on services that affect the neediest in society, but also keeping wage demands in line, and so protecting the interests of corporations and the few that benefit from that.

So if the public faces of the shutdown are the Tea Party-ites in Congress, with Ted Cruz and his filibuster as their poster child, it is important to remember that these groups have received the backing of foundations and shadow groups controlled by a few wealthy plutocrats, like the Koch brothers. It is those wealthy at the top, who are not affected by the shutdown, that should be blamed for the current crisis. Class warfare, not stupidity, and the crooks and liars at the top, not the “idiots” in the public spotlight, are the problem.

Triple Crisis
Crooks, Liars, Idiots, and Plutocrats
Matias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, University of Utah

In short, the neoliberal agenda.

Sandwichman — Glenn Greenwald Shout Out to Dean Baker

Greenwald:

"So the last point I want to make is that one of the things I set out to do and I think that Mr. Snowden set out to do and that I know the people at The Guardian set out to do was not simply to publish some stories about the NSA. It was to really shake up the foundations of the corrupted and rotted roots of America’s political and media culture. And the reason I say that is that there is an economist Dean Baker, who yesterday on Twitter wrote that he thinks the stories that we’re doing are shining as much light on the corruption of American journalism as they are on the corruption of the National Security Agency.

"I think that is true for several different reasons. Number one is if you look at the 'debate' over—the charming, very endearing debate over whether or not I should be arrested, prosecuted and then imprisoned under Espionage Act statutes for doing journalism—What you find is that debate is being led by other people who are TV actors who play the role of journalists on TV. They’re ones who are actually leading the debate and the reason they are doing that is they purport to be adversaries of political power or watchdogs of political power but what they really are servants to political power. They’re appendages to political power."

Video at link

Econospeak
Glenn Greenwald Shout Out to Dean Baker
Sandwichman

Andrew Gavin Marshall — Global Power Project, Part 3: The Influence of Individuals and Family Dynasties

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.

Truthout | News Analysis
Global Power Project, Part 3: The Influence of Individuals and Family Dynasties
Andrew Gavin Marshall, Occupy.com

Meet and greet the power elite.

Signal to repeat über-historian Carroll Quigley:

"The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank... sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."     

Carroll Quigley (1910-1977) | Professor of History at Georgetown University, member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), mentor to Bill Clinton, in Tragedy and Hope, 1966., ch. 20

Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (PDF)
Volumes 1-8
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966

Leslie Savan — The Koch Influence

At one point an ITVS vice-president spelled it out: “We live in a world where we have to be aware that people with power have power.” ITVS cancelled the project in April.

The Nation
The Koch Influence
Leslie Savan