The Financial Core of the Transnational Capitalist Class
By Peter Phillips and Brady Osborne
Estimates are that the total world’s wealth is close to $200 trillion,
with the US and European elites holding approximately 63 percent of
that total; meanwhile, the poorest half of the global population
together possesses less than 2 percent of global wealth. The World
Bank reports that, 1.29 billion people were living in extreme poverty,
on less than $1.25 a day, and 1.2 billion more were living on less
than $2.00 a day. Thirty-five thousand people, mostly young children,
die every day from malnutrition. While millions suffer, a
transnational financial elite seeks returns on trillions of dollars
that speculate on the rising costs of food, commodities, land, and
other life sustaining items for the primary purpose of financial
gain. They do this in cooperation with each other in a global system
of transnational corporate power and control and as such constitute
the financial core of an international corporate capitalist class.
Project Censored has just finish a year long study on the people on
the boards of directors of the top ten asset management firms and the
top ten most centralized corporations in the world. With overlaps
there is a total of thirteen firms in our study: Barclays PLC,
BlackRock Inc., Capital Group Companies Inc., FMR Corporation:
Fidelity Worldwide Investment, AXA Group, State Street Corporation,
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Legal & General Group PLC (LGIMA), Vanguard
Group Inc., UBS AG, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse Group
AG, and Allianz SE (Owners of PIMCO) PIMCO-Pacific Investment
Management Co. The boards of directors of these firms, totaling 161
individuals. They are the financial core of the world’s Transnational
Capitalist Class. Collectively, these 161 people manage $23.91
trillion in funds impacting nearly every country in the world.
The institutional arrangements within the money management systems of
global capital relentlessly seek ways to achieve maximum return on
investment, and the structural conditions for manipulations—legal or
not—are always open (Libor scandal). These institutions have become
“too big to fail,” their scope and interconnections pressure
government regulators to shy away from criminal investigations, much
less prosecutions. The result is a semi-protected class of people with
increasingly vast amounts of money, seeking unlimited growth and
returns, with little concern for consequences of their economic
pursuits on other people, societies, cultures, and environments.
One hundred thirty-six of the 161 core members (84 percent) are male.
Eighty-eight percent are whites of European descent (just nineteen are
people of color). Fifty-two percent hold graduate degrees—including
thirty-seven MBAs, fourteen JDs, twenty-one PhDs, and twelve MA/MS
degrees. Almost all have attended private colleges, with close to half
attending the same ten universities: Harvard University (25), Oxford
University (11), Stanford University (8), Cambridge University (8),
University of Chicago (8), University of Cologne (6), Columbia
University (5), Cornell University (4), the Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania (3), and University of California–Berkeley
(3). Forty-nine are or were CEOs, eight are or were CFOs; six had
prior experience at Morgan Stanley, six at Goldman Sachs, four at
Lehman Brothers, four at Swiss Re, seven at Barclays, four at Salomon
Brothers, and four at Merrill Lynch.
People from twenty-two nations make up the central financial core of
the Transnational Corporate Class. Seventy-three (45 percent) are from
the US; twenty-seven (16 percent) Britain; fourteen France; twelve
Germany; eleven Switzerland; four Singapore; three each from Austria,
Belgium, and India; two each from Australia and South Africa; and one
each from Brazil, Vietnam, Hong Kong/China, Qatar, the Netherlands,
Zambia, Taiwan, Kuwait, Mexico, and Colombia. They mostly live in or
near a number of the world’s great cities: New York, Chicago, London,
Paris, and Munich.
Members of the financial core take active parts in global policy
groups and government. Five of the thirteen corporations have
directors as advisors or former employees of the International
Monetary Fund. Six of the thirteen firms have directors who have
worked at or served as advisors to the World Bank. Five of the
thirteen firms hold corporate membership in the Council on Foreign
Relations in the US. Seven of the firms sent nineteen directors to
attend the World Economic Forum in February 2013. Seven of the
directors have served or currently serve on a Federal Reserve board,
both regionally and nationally in the US. Six of the financial core
serve on the Business Roundtable in the US. Several directors have had
direct experience with the financial ministries of European Union
countries and the G20. Almost all of the 161 individuals serve in some
advisory capacity for various regulatory organizations, finance
ministries, universities, and national or international policy-
planning bodies.
Western governments and international policy bodies serve the
interests of this financial core of the Transnational Corporate Class.
Wars are initiated to protect their interests. International treaties,
and policy agreements are arranged to promote their success. Power
elites serve to promote the free flow of global capital for investment
anywhere that returns are possible.
Identifying the people with such power and influence is an important
part of democratic movements seeking to protect our commons so that
all humans might share and prosper.
The full, detailed list is online at:
http://www.projectcensored.org/exposing-financial-core-transnational-%E2%80%A8capitalist-class/
Peter Phillips is professor of sociology at Sonoma State University
and president of Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored.
Brady Osborne is a senior level research associate at Sonoma State
University.
