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362 Chapter 11 politics and the economy

Figure 11.5 The Inverted Income Pyramid: The Proportion of Income
Received by Each Fifth of the U.S. Population

Pe Percentage of the nation's income received
Percentage of the U.S. populationrcentage of the U.S. population
20% 50%
20% 23%
20% 15%

20% 9%
20% 3%

Source: By the author. Based on Statistical Abstract of the United States 2013:Table 708.

class (Phillips and Soeiro 2012). The global superclass is not only extremely wealthy, as
Read on MySocLab
Document: The Global Economy we reviewed in Chapter 7 (see Figure 7.1, page 198), but it is also extremely powerful.
and the Privileged Class These people have access to the top circles of political power around the globe.
This group shies away from researchers, but here is your chance to listen to a member
of the global superclass describe their tight connections:
Every country has its large financial institutions that are central to the development of
that country, and everyone else in finance knows somebody who will know the head of one
of those companies. That person knows a senior person in their government that could be
useful in a situation. . . . the key is the network. . . . it is twenty, thirty, fifty people world-
wide who ultimately drive the decisions. (Rothkopf 2008:129–130)

Twenty to fifty individuals who make the world’s major decisions! Could this possibly
be true? The individual who said this, Stephen Schwarzman, is an insider who is worth
about $9 billion (Freeland 2011). Here is a real-life example of how this interconnected
global power works out in practice:
When Schwarzman, a co-founder of Blackstone, an investment company, had a problem
with some policy of the German government, he called a German friend. The friend ar-
ranged for Schwarzman to meet with the Chancellor of Germany. After listening to
Schwarzman, the Chancellor agreed to support a change in Germany’s policy.
Do you see the power that is concentrated in this small group? The U.S. members
can call the U.S. president, the English members can ring up the British prime minister,
and so on. They know how to get and give favors, to move vast amounts of capital from
country to country, and to open and close doors to investments around the world. This
concentration of power is new to the world scene. Working behind the scenes, the global
superclass affects our present and our future.
To close this chapter, let’s look at this aspect of our changing political and economic order.

a New World Order?
11.9 Explain how the
globalization of capitalism might be
bringing a New World Order. So far, the use of war and terrorism to try to dominate the globe has failed. A New
World Order, however, might be on its way, ushered in not by violence, but by changing
economic-political conditions.

Trends Toward Unity
Perhaps the key political event in our era is the globalization of capitalism. Why the term
political? Because politics and economics are twins, with each setting the stage for the
other. Look at the economic–political units being developed. The United States, Canada,