I'm really thinking that Bill Clinton isn't exactly in the same wealth bracket as Murdoch. You better stick to the R side of the isle for your sources domestically and then look in China and India.

Otherwise you come across as being rather silly.

"Superclass" makes a case that today's elites are an improvement on those of the past: Instead of inherited aristocracy or sheer military might, power is more likely to go to the smart, ambitious and hardworking. Membership is fluid to an unprecedented extent, with new people muscling their way into the inner circle and slackers dropping out of the bottom all the time."

Does that alone really make them "better" than past elites? I tend to doubt it. I think it could actually make them worse, in the sense of them being more capable and competent predators should they choose. Machiavelli's Prince perfected.

Rome was meritocratic in regards to successful military leaders ascending to power. They were the most capable at crushing thier opposition. Once in power they typically did all they could to crush potential adversaries including killing off their own families. They often made Rome in their own image, more cruel and ruthless, and less democratic.

Successful and innovative companies often become anti-competitive as soon as they can.

The ability to succeed in business doesn't necessarily indicate a higher consciousness towards humanity, any more than a full stomach necessarily indicates a brilliant mind.

Bill Clinton certainly is in the same wealth and power bracket as Murdoch. They're both in the tiniest fraction of the global economy globally.

You seem to be misunderstanding both wealth and power.

First of all, most of Murdoch's wealth isn't cash he can spend. It's stock he controls, but the value of that stock is dependent on evaluation of other stock holders, and their evaluation is dependent on Murdoch not spending it and investing it in ways they deem good investments.

His actual "cash" isn't that much more than Bill's. Both have more than they could ever spend unless they took up some perversely expensive and unusual habits.

What's far more important is the amount of power and influence they wield, and in that regard, they're certainly in the same class.

This is the same class that apppears in any each of Vanity Fair, especially when it does the media elite issue, or any special issues that ties in money, position, and cachet. This "superclass" would also be the "overclass" that Michael Lind had once wrote about in Harper's years ago.

We must resist the temptation to reflexively attack elites," he writes, since human societies need leaders and this is an able bunch...

My reaction to his caution to "resist the temptation" to attack the elites makes me want to ask-- Yeah? why?

Wouldn't another group take their place if they weren't there, presumably an equally ambitious and equally self-interested one? And have the current bunch really been doing that good a job?

It occurs to me that, like Laura Miller, I've heard this thesis before-- and it also occurs to me that he didn't use the more commonly used "overclass" because the derivative quality of the argument would be all the more obvious.

Finally, I'm very suspicious of overclass charity-- it seems like P.R. for

(1)restrictive copyright laws that keep prices on medicines artificially high, as well as

(2)a way to discourage too much talk of good old-fashioned progressive taxation and activist government.

Hopefully, 'Superclass' does more than is touched on in this discussion.

Collections of names and statistics do not explain contemporary power dynamics, and do not effectively explain why these people are important in a larger context. Such an approach would amount to not seeing the forest for the trees. I don't get a sense that the book isn't much more than that, and therefore not so valuable for meaningful insights as it could be.

Unfortunately, the discussion here mostly overlooks the roles of the international banking community, the military-industrial complex, and the neoconservative movement, without which any treatment cannot be more than superficial. Let's hope this isn't a reflection on the book, and that it isn't just a stylized version of Who's Who with McPaper commentaries and conclusions.

Is this supposed to be a new phenomenon?

NEW global power elite? Really?

Meet the new boss:

Same as the old boss.

Barf! Have you spent your life trying to save idiot bosses who are nowhere close to the "global elite" from their own foolishness, and lost? So that you are part of the global crushed-under-moderately-fancy-shoes class?

These "global elite" people wake up lucky, and realize they are closer to death than to their beginnings, and they just spout profoundish blather, and hope like hell to rake in big speaking fees until they get too old and stupid.

They wear moderately-starched shirts with well-pressed suits plus ironed boxers, and get away with metaphorical or actual murder. Most of these people are just flat-out silly. Hollywood mets the UN. Where are they leading us? Things are not getting better.

"We must resist the temptation to reflexively attack elites," he writes, since human societies need leaders and this is an able bunch...

As an 'able bunch', they seem quite unable to keep millions from dying of preventable disease and starvation, year in and year out, or to deal with overpopulation, ecological collapse, rampant illegal US militarism, financial upheaval, peak oil, or global warming. That's basically everything.

They could mitigate these problems if they wanted to, but mostly they just want to get richer, despite the consequences to the rest of the species, even in the face of so much misery.

So they profit from these problems instead of dealing with them. It's what they do, mostly.

How the Rich Are Destroying the Planet

When the situation is so clear and alarming, how does it remain so stubbornly intractable to change?

It's because those who have power in the world want it to be this way.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031507E.shtml

We don't need 'elites' who are such failures as 'leaders' and who mostly seem interested in getting themselves overpaid as much as possible for their 'leadership'. So they've earned their 'criticism', not that any 'reform' is likely to be forthcoming.

The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.

Voltaire