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The New World

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The Super-Rich

Abstract

The end of the forty years of Cold War was more than the political triumph of the West over the Soviet Union. It was also more than the victory of freedom and pluralism over command communism. When the Berlin Wall cracked open and the iron curtain fell a new form of capitalism came into its own — global capitalism — and with it new global elite, a new class.

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Notes and References

  1. The median income of US families was about $37 000 in 1993. US Census Bureau, Income and Poverty, CD-ROM, table 3F (1993). The median income of UK households was about $16500 (The exchange rate used here is $1.6 to the pound) in 1990 at 1993 prices. See John Hills, Income and Wealth, vol. 2 (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Feb. 1995).

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  2. Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, The Millionaire Next Door (Atlanta, GA: 1997). Some scholars have suggested defining The rich’ not in terms of millions but rather as those with a family income over nine times the poverty line — in US terms about $95 000 a year in 1987. See S. Danziger, P. Gottschalk and E. Smolensky, ‘How The Rich Have Fared, 1973–87’, American Economic Review, vol. 72, no. 2 (May, 1989), p. 312.

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  3. The US Finance House Merrill Lynch in conjunction with Gemini Consulting, ‘World Wealth Report 1997’ (London: Merrill Lynch, 1997).

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  4. Stanley and Danko, The Millionaire Next Door, op. cit., p. 12.

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  5. US figures for 1995 from Arthur B. Kennickeil (board of governors of the Federal Reserve System) and R. Louise Woodburn, ‘Consistent Weight Design for the 1989, 1992 and 1995 SCF’s and the Distribution of Wealth’, revised July, 1997 unpublished. The UK figures are for 1993–4. For the UK figures, which include pensions, see Hills, Income and Wealth, op. cit., ch. 7.

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  6. Merrill Lynch, ‘World Wealth Report, 1997’, op. cit.

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  7. The ‘World Wealth Report, 1997’ (Merrill Lynch, op. cit.) projected, before the late 1997 Asian economic decline, that in 2000 the division of high net worth assets by source region would be Europe 7.1, North America 5.8, Asia 6.1, Latin America 3.8, Middle East 1.2 and Africa 0.4.

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  8. Of these multimillionaire Americans, families of British (that is English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish) and German descent account for 41.3 per cent of the total.

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  9. Newsweek, 4 Aug. 1997 (source IRS).

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  10. The UN Human Development Report (1996) put the figure at 358, and Forbes magazine’s 1997 wealth list put the figure at 447, up from 274 in 1991.

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  11. Newsweek 4 Aug, 1997 (source Forbes, op. cit.)

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  12. See also, Phillip Hall, Royal Fortune: Tax, Money and The Monarchy (London: 1992) for a systematic account of the mysteries of the royal finances. One fact about the Queen’s money remains: since 1998 she has remained above the law as far as taxation is concerned as she is not treated in exactly the same way — with all tax laws applying to her — as every other British person.

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  13. See Newsweek, The New Rich’, 4 Aug. 1997.

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  14. Hills, Income and Wealth, op. cit., p. 9. Hills suggests that Tf Britain’s richest man, Soho millionaire Paul Raymond, receives a modest 3 per cent net real return on his reported £1.65 billion fortune’ his income would be £1 million a week.

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  15. Figures from Newsweek, 4 Aug. 1997, reporting Forbes in June 1997. The figures for the Queen were for 1992 (as published in The Sunday Times’ ‘Rich List’, 1997), and were subsequently revised downwards following a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission.

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  16. The World Bank’s World Atlas, calculated the GNP of the USA as $7100007000000 and that of the Group of Seven as $17 948000000000 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1997). Calculations in US dollars and US computations of billion and trillion.

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  17. John Gray, ‘Bill Rules the World — And I Don’t Mean Clinton’, Daily Express, 11 Sep. 1998.

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  18. UN, Human Development Report, (1966). Comparing wealth with income is highly problematic, but nonetheless serves to display the enormity of the comparison. These comparisons — between asset net worth and gross national product (GNP) are not of course comparing like with like, but are used in order to show the extent of the egregious financial and economic power of the high net worth individuals. The most reasonable method of comparison would be to compare the net worth of super-rich individuals and groups of super-rich individuals with the total net worth of each country (That is, each individual/family in the country). These figures are not available for more than a handful of countries.

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  19. ‘Billion’ here and throughout the book is used in the US sense that is, nine noughts

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  20. Wealth figures from The Sunday Times’, 1997 ‘Rich List’, op. cit., population figures for 1995 from World Development Report (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1997).

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  21. The US figure is from Forbes, June 1977, and the European and British from The Sunday Times, 6 April, 1977. For GNP figures see World Bank, The World Atlas, op. cit

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  22. Guardian, 23 Sep. 1997.

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  23. These estimates are based upon the net worth estimates cited in Forbes magazine, June 1977, and in ‘The Wealth Register’, compiled by Dr Richard Beresford for The Sunday Times (extracts published in The Sunday Times, 6 April, 1997), who also cites Forbes magazine. The World Atlas, op. cit.

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  24. As I argue throughout this book, the super-rich are in reality global; but they all need a passport, and we are talking here about US passport holders.

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  25. The percentage of net worth of the total marketable net worth of all British passport holders.

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  26. The Sunday Times, 6 April, 1997. This is the British billion, that is, 12 noughts as opposed to the US nine noughts.

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  27. Andrew Lycett, ‘Who Really Owns London?’, The Times, 17 Sep. 1997.

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  28. Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the US Federal Reserve, quoted in Newsweek, 23 June 1997.

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  29. Figures from ‘Consistent Weight Design for the 1989, 1992 and 1995 SCF’s and the Distribution of Wealth’ by Arthur Kennickell (Federal Reserve System) and R. Louise Woodburn (Ernst and Young), revised July 1997 (unpublished). Figures derived from the Survey of Consumer Finances sponsored by the US Federal Reserve System and the Statistics of Income Division of the IRS.

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  30. See Charles Feinstein, ‘The Equalising of Wealth In Britain Since The Second World War’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, vol. 12, no, 1 (Spring 1996), p. 96 ff. In British estimates distinctions tend to be made between marketable wealth and total wealth — marketable wealth excludes state pensions, occupational pensions and tenancy rights.

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  31. All HNWI assessments from Merrill Lynch, ‘World Health Report’, op. cit. The assessment of the assets of world-wide HNWIs was conducted before the collapse of many Asian markets in 1998.

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  32. Merrill Lynch, ‘World Health Report’, op, cit.

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  33. 1995 figures in Kennickell and Woodburn, ‘Consistent Weight Design’, op. cit., table 9.

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  34. For precise figures see Hills, Income and Wealth, op, cit., pp. 98–9

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  35. John Scott, Corporate Business and Capitalist Classes (Oxford, 1997), p. 65; see idem p. 70 and table 12, p. 74, for assessments

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  36. Edward Luttwak, The Endangered American Dream (New York: 1993), p. 175

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  37. These categories from Scott, Corporate Business, op. cit., pp. 278–9.

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  39. M. Zeitlin, cited in Scott, Corporate Business, op, cit., p, 300

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  40. Categories detailed in Kennickell and Woodburn, ‘Consistent Weight Design’, op, cit.

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  41. 1995 salaries from Denny Braun, The Rich Get Richer: the Rise of Inequality in the United States and the World (Chicago: 1997), pp, 32–3.

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  42. Business Week, 21 April, 1997

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  43. Reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer, 26 May, 1991.

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  44. Fortune Magazine, 4 May, 1990

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  46. See Stanley and Danko, The Millionaire Next Door, op. cit., p, 143.

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  47. For discussion of twentieth-century capitalist wealth concentration see: K. Renner, The Institutions of Private Law and their Social Function, translation of 1928 revised edition (London: 1949); R. Hilferding, Finance Capital (London: 1981); A. A., Berle and G. C. Means, Corporations and Private Property (New York: 1947); C. A. R. Crosland, The Future of Socialism (London: 1956); and Scott, Corporate Business, op. cit.

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  48. Scott, Corporate Business, op, cit., p. 303

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  49. See M. P. Allen, ‘Continuity and Change Within the Core Corporate Elite’, Sociological Quarterly, vol. 19.

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  50. See Scott, Corporate Business, op. cit, p. 303.

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  51. A. A. Berle, The American Economic Republic (London: 1963). See also J. Burnham, The Managerial Revolution (Harmondsworth: 1945); C. A. R. Crosland, The Future of Socialism (London: 1956); A. A. Berle and G. C. Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (New York: 1947, 1st edn 1932); A. A. Berle, The Twentieth Century Capitalist Revolution (London: 1955).

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  52. For an attempt to fuse Marxist and managerialist analyses, see P. A. Baran and P. M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (Harmondsworth: 1966). See also Scott, Corporate Business, op. cit., for a systematic analysis of Marxist and managerialist analyses.

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  53. Figures from Christopher Parkes, The Birth of Enclave Man’, Financial Times, 20–21 Sep. 1997.

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  54. Thomas L. Friedman, International Herald Tribune, 24 June, 1997.

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  55. New York Times, 18 April, 1997.

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  56. The US Alternative Minimum Tax is levied on those who have substantial incomes but, because of their use of tax shelters and exemptions, submit a zero tax return.

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  57. See Hall, Royal Fortune, op. cit.

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  58. Guardian, 7 June, 1997.

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  59. IMF and Gibraltar figures in Hans-Peter Martin and Harald Schumann, The Global Trap: Globalization and the Assault on Prosperity and Democracy (London and New York: 1997), p. 63. Originally published in German under the title Die Globalisierungsfalle: der Angriff auf Demokratie und Wohlstand (Hamburg: 1997).

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  60. An inside story of the Mexican ‘bail-out’ is told in Martin and Schumann, The Global Trap, op, cit., pp. 40–5.

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  1. London, UK

    Stephen Haseler

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© 2000 Stephen Haseler

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Haseler, S. (2000). The New World. In: The Super-Rich. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230285965_1

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