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by David Rothkopf
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Every era has its elite. Kings and priests ruled the ancient world. Landed aristocrats dominated the feudal age. Industrial titans rose with the factories and railroads of the nineteenth century. National power brokers, the politicians and military leaders and corporate chieftains who operated within clearly defined borders, shaped the twentieth century.
**Author:** David Rothkopf
**Estimated Reading Time:** 45 minutes
**What You'll Learn:**
- Who actually runs the world today and how they gained their influence - Why national borders matter less than ever to the most powerful people on Earth - How wealth, access, and networks create a self-reinforcing global elite - What history teaches us about the rise and fall of powerful classes - How the tension between globalists and nationalists is reshaping politics - What the future may hold as power shifts toward new regions and technologies
**Who This Book Is For:**
This book is for anyone who wants to understand the hidden architecture of global power. It is for readers who sense that something fundamental has changed in how the world operates, that the old maps of nations and governments no longer fully explain who makes the decisions that shape our lives. It is for the curious, the concerned, and the ambitious who want to see clearly the forces that are remaking our world.
Every era has its elite. Kings and priests ruled the ancient world. Landed aristocrats dominated the feudal age. Industrial titans rose with the factories and railroads of the nineteenth century. National power brokers, the politicians and military leaders and corporate chieftains who operated within clearly defined borders, shaped the twentieth century. But something new has emerged in our time. A small group of people, perhaps six thousand individuals out of a global population of more than six billion, now wields influence that transcends national boundaries entirely. These are not simply the richest people on Earth, though many of them are extraordinarily wealthy. They are not merely the most powerful politicians, though heads of state count among their number. They are something more fluid, more interconnected, and in many ways more consequential than any elite that has come before. David Rothkopf calls this group the superclass. The superclass consists of people who can regularly influence the lives of millions of people in multiple countries simultaneously. A hedge fund manager in New York makes a trading decision that affects pensioners in Chile. A technology executive in Silicon Valley launches a product that transforms how people communicate in Indonesia. A religious leader in Rome speaks, and communities in Nigeria and the Philippines listen. A media mogul in London shapes public opinion across continents. These people are not bound by the old rules. They move through a world where national borders are increasingly irrelevant, where their connections to global peers often matter more than their ties to fellow citizens, and where their decisions ripple outward in ways that are difficult to trace and nearly impossible to hold accountable. The rise of this global elite raises profound questions. How…
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Get the complete summary in the appA new global elite, the superclass, has emerged: roughly six thousand people who can regularly influence the lives of mi
The superclass is defined by influence, not wealth or position alone. Its members come from politics, business, finance,
Power comes from multiple sources: wealth, position, force, access, and ideas. The superclass combines these sources to
Transnational corporations and financial institutions have become some of the most powerful actors in the world, rivalin
Wealth and power are extraordinarily concentrated. The top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the world's wealth, and the patt
Access is the most valuable commodity for the superclass. Time is the ultimate limited resource, and access to it is a f
"Superclass" is a strong fit if you want practical ideas around politics, economics, business, especially themes like a new global elite, the superclass, has emerged: roughly six thousand people who can regularly influence the lives of mi; the superclass is defined by influence, not wealth or position alone. its members come from politics, business, finance,. The MinuteRead summary distills these concepts into a focused read, whether you're deciding whether to buy the book or applying its lessons at work.
Motivated to help readers with global governance by American author David Rothkopf, released in March 2008 by publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux, David Rothkopf wrote “Superclass” as a practical guide drawn from years of experience and research. In “Superclass”, David Rothkopf focuses on each of the members of this superclass has the ability to regularly influence the lives of millions of people. Through “Superclass”, David Rothkopf distills the core ideas on politics into lessons readers can a…
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