What Power Looks Like

But even as the group is narrow, it is still more permeable and global than the elites of preceding centuries. As noted earlier, many fewer members have inherited wealth or power. Talk to the superclass and they themselves will discuss how important luck has been in determining their membership in the group.

As their power grows, so does the possibility of a backlash for the superclass; 2008 has been a year of challenges for the ideas and institutions they represent—markets are melting down, energy reserves are being renationalized, protectionism is growing. On the stump, U.S. presidential candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee and John Edwards have all assailed growing inequality in the United States. But the statistics in other superclass hot spots like China are far worse. With the salaries of major multinational CEOs now averaging more than 350 times that of the average employee— a tenfold increase over the disparities of the 1970s—there is a growing anger that those with the power are using it to unfairly feather their own nests.

The current financial crisis is another such example, producing serious questions about the influence of the superclass. Of the world's elites, none has strutted the world stage for the past decade like global investment bankers. Masters of money, they created something new: global markets and a constantly evolving array of securities that were both beyond the reach and the comprehension of regulators. Now, the value of some of the complex investment vehicles they created is proving to be illusory.

As a consequence, the world economy was set for the crisis that is currently unfolding. There was no effective global regulator to keep the system in check, and there was no real voice for the average Joe. The Federal Reserve stepped in to stabilize the burnout of one of these major market makers—even though they have no jurisdiction over investment banks, even though many of those supporting the bailout/buyout were the same who have long clamored for "self-regulation," even though many were the ones who had cited the moral hazard of helping to bail out homeowners and encouraging their bad borrowing behavior. And so you have a financial leadership structure that bails out investment bankers worldwide, but not homeowners.

Some in that leadership are embracing new regulatory proposals mainly because they believe it is the price they must pay to maintain the safety net that was quickly woven together by chairman Bernanke and U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson (the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, the investment bank that has produced in recent years what is perhaps the most extraordinary list of superclass members).

Many critics assert that this financial crisis is a classic example of elite overreach. Historically, elites from the tyrants of ancient Greece to those of post Civil War America have always been undone by their own greed and ambition. Many today wonder if this might be the beginning of the end for the current superclass, as it was in those instances when the rise of political reformers like Solon and Cleisthenes or trustbusters like Teddy Roosevelt led to major changes in efforts to rein in elite power.