| Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making | 
 enlarge | Author: David Rothkopf
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 18647
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.5
ISBN: 0374272107
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.5209045
EAN: 9780374272104
ASIN: 0374272107
Publication Date: March 18, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. Brand new.
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| Customer Reviews:
 bordering on fraudulent August 5, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
well, not this book actually, but a related book by Parag Khanna titled The Second World.
Some of the various, and numerous, factual errors that riddle the book are relatively trivial, but suggest serious sloppiness and disregard for getting facts right. For example, Yugoslavia was not part of Warsaw pact, as Khanna states. Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov was appointed to office in 1992 by Boris Yeltsin, and not by Vladimir Putin. Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Albania are not all smaller by population than Manhattan, and the death toll from the civil wars in former Yugoslavia was not greater than half a million. Other obviously wrong assertions seem to be made up simply to provide lurid background color to Khanna's travelogue: the former KGB headquarters in Moscow has not been turned into "a high-class disco," expensive Moscow malls do not charge entrance fees, and police road checkpoints in Uzbekistan do not stop and check all vehicles. And other gross misstatements of fact display a simple complete lack of understanding the history and culture of the countries of which he writes: the (Orthodox) Uspenky cave monastery in Crimea is not representative of Ukraine's "proud Catholic heritage," Zoran Djindjic was not the first democratically elected leader since World War II in former Yugoslavia , and in the 1980s Yugoslav republics like Bosnia and Macedonia were not richer than Spain. Many of Khanna's wildly wrong claims sound like local myths that he has taken at face value. I can easily imagine some misguided elderly Belgrade resident waxing nostalgically for the days "when every one of our republics was richer than Spain!"
Yet more of Khanna's assertions are not merely factually wrong, but far exceed the ludicrous. In the fast paced and dangerous Russian business world, "one is safe only in the sauna, where everyone is naked and no weapons are allowed." It was news to me to learn from Khanna that every winter "waves" of Russians and "thousands of Ukrainians" freeze to death in "crumbling heatless apartment blocks." And he employs gross mischaracterizations of fact to buttress his claims. For example, according to Khanna, in 2006 Greek GDP increased 25% when the government started to account for prostitution and cigarette smuggling in its figures. In fact, the government said it would include all unreported economic activity, mostly in construction and trade, but including a "small" amount for illegal activities such as smuggling. And this is merely a sampling of patently ridiculous claims.
And for a "foreign policy whiz-kid," Khanna makes numerous and serious analytical mistakes, showing a clear misunderstanding of economics, international institutions, and international relations. The unhedged statement, "Russia's diplomatic position is purely residual," will surely surprise diplomats from Brussels to Tokyo. Noting that Gazprom's market capitalization is $300 billion leads Khanna to the conclusion that Gazprom is one third of the Russian economy, confusing market capitalization with GDP. And his bald assertion that "[n]one of Central Asian legal systems have evolved beyond Kakfaaesque" is belied by the numerous successful legislative accomplishments of Kazakhstan and its quite sophisticated legal code, for example.
But the worst moments of Khanna's book are when he quotes conversations that seem of such dubious authenticity as to make me believe they may be fabricated, or at best the result of very selective reporting, only relating those comments that fit within his pre-existing views. "'Our pride has suffered'" explains a "Moscow intellectual over a narrow glass of [of course] ice-chilled vodka, `but this only drives our nationalism further.'" In Kiev, the locals "give lifts to strangers for a token fare." Why? "We suffered enough together, so we still trust each other." There are just too many such (anonymous) quotations that fail to ring true to trust in the author's integrity. And he also reports statements by national leaders as if they were heard in personal conversation, yet in a curiously indirect fashion that suggests otherwise.
 A Different Slice of The Globalization Debate July 31, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is an attempt to present a picture of people at the top of their fields with high-profile international roles (the global elite), and to assess their collective impact on the course of world events and the behavior and policy choices of governments.
The book has many strengths. One is the close personal experience the author has from having worked in the circles he writes about. While this sometimes sounds too much like a vicarious trip around the planet to elite dinner parties, it does give the author practical understanding of who these people are, what they do and how they interact with government, all of which is of benefit to the reader.
Another strength is the author's use of some elite theorists of the past, particularly C Wright Mills, though he does not really develop an analytical framework along these lines, which is unfortunate. The book might have benefitted from the thought of other elite theorists, such as Mosca and Pareto, though he mentions Pareto in another context. While the use of elite theory provides a nice intellectual framework, it is underdeveloped and, as a result, seems directionless.
For example, the author notes variously how elites circulate in and out off various positions at the top (business, government, the arts, etc.), suggesting Mills' idea of interlocking directorates. But what is his ultimate evaluation of this? In Mills, the idea implied a door closed to outsiders, which meant these elites were unresponsive to democratic mechanisms. If true, then democracy is but window dressing. Does the author believe this or not? Sometimes it seems he does and sometimes it seems he doesn't.
Related to this is the circulation of elites from the lower orders up to the elite and the opposite movement of older elites downward. How does this work with the global elite? Is it a process of meritocratic and competitive advancement or is it a process of caste, privilege, etc., all supported by various networks? The author seems to imply both in different places without synthesizing his analysis into a cogent whole. He does speak at length about the rise and fall of elites, but sometimes we think that a person's attendance at an elite university offers social networking opportunities that promote advancement, while, at other times, we think the elite in question are driven, skilled and smart and that's how they got there. It's likely a combination of the two, but why? What are the recruitment mechanisms (aside from elite universities)? What are the relevant correlates of elite circulation or lack thereof? This is the type of circulation of elites that Mosca and Parerto discussed, but the author makes no use of them here. It would also be a great opportunity for the author to use the data he seems to have on the 6,000 persons identified as being in the global elite. There is a treasure trove of testable hypotheses in elite literature.
The author does attempt to synthesize the characteristics of this superclass (e.g., he tells us where most went to school and where most originate from), but I'd liked to have seen a more systematic analysis of this group. It's possible, however, that the group of 6,000 is so diverse that they are really not a single group. It's easy to see top business and government elites as being in the same overall group, but how does Sting come into play here? He wants a voice on African development, but will Sting ever circulate out of music into the World Bank? Would Sting's skills translate into worthwhile economic and financial analysis? Maybe Sting and similar characters are in a different tier of the global elite.
Last, the book attempts to address the problems that governments face in dealing with this class of people. It seems that government policies that might be adverse to the interests of the global elite, even if beneficial to the public at large, will cause the elite to make financial decisions that will harm a society (such as moving billions of dollars around the globe in a short order of time). This forces governments to dance to the tune of the elite to keep them happy, but prevents them from pursuing policies that may be necessary for their publics. This is one of the conundrums of globalization and the author's discussion of this issue is well worth reading.
 Embarrassing July 9, 2008
6 out of 10 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
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
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