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** 'An entertaining and well researched taxonomy of the rich and powerful who shape foreign policy and business in our globalized world. Rothkopf gives us the story behind Davos Man (Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics and author of MAKING GLOBALIZATION WORK and GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS )
** 'This is a wide-ranging, hard-hitting book about all our lives (WATERSTONES BOOKS QUARTERLY )
** 'Penned by a former advisor to Bill Clinton, this engaging study of the elite power mongers . . . who run the world is more than a mere power list (GQ )
** 'This is a wide-ranging, hard-hitting book about all our lives (WATERSTONES BOOKS QUARTERLY )
** 'Penned by a former advisor to Bill Clinton, this engaging study of the elite power mongers . . . who run the world is more than a mere power list (GQ )
Book Description
A compelling, sometimes unsettling portrait of the world's most powerful men and women
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 35 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
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.
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.
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I can only assume that William Pedmore is a secret member of the 'elite' and does not want anyone to read what he has and is up to! His comment that " The class pretends to help solve AIDS and Africas poverty by throwing money at the problem - but who does the work of doctoring and nursing or planting - not Bill Gates" demonstrates his twisted thinking. Who on earth does he think pays for the doctors, nurses or planters? I found the book very informative and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in what makes this world 'tick'.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
David Rothkopf's 'Superclass' contains useful analysis about why this superclass, the global elite of maybe 6,000 individuals, has developed and why its members thrive in the considerable space beyond national jurisdictions but -- perhaps because of his own privileged position as a member of the revolving door elite, moving between academia, consultancy and public policy and administration -- he avoids criticising individuals within the elite, preferring to highlight the system itself as flawed. He refers (p.323) to the "threatening divides" between the superclass and the rest, but opines that the members of the superclass are the people most able to reduce the divides. I would have liked this concept to have been explored further. Rothkopf accepts that the 'superclass' owns disproportionately huge amounts of global resources, and that this is a threat to social stability, but other than praising philanthropy, does not suggest how resources might be shared more fairly. On the plus side, the book is very informative about power networks: the people at the apex of the 'superclass' and the influence that emanates from them.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
In-depth exploration of the global elite
Conspiracy theories thrive on mystery, and no group is more mysterious than the planet's richest, most powerful people. Former U.S. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Rolf Dobelli
Good Read !
I found this book a bit daunting during the first chapter,however,it is very interesting reading material indeed !!
Published on 5 Sep 2009 by K. Breen
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