Outing the Oligarchy - International Forum on Globalization

—INDIVIDUALS OF UNDUE INFLUENCE —
Moreover, <strong>the</strong> traditional industrialists in <strong>the</strong> U.S. retain an historical responsibility for <strong>the</strong>ir larger carbon
footprints due to longer periods of time polluting with fossil fuels, as well as <strong>the</strong>ir decades of investments in
exerting political control over policymaking in <strong>the</strong> world’s most polluting country that has kept global climate
talks deadlocked. While <strong>the</strong> list of fifty individuals who follow includes many more names from <strong>the</strong> Global
South than <strong>the</strong>y would have one decade ago, it is those from <strong>the</strong> Global North that deserve <strong>the</strong> most
attention, particularly in light of <strong>the</strong>ir governments’ ignoring international legal obligations to cut carbon for
twenty years. Don’t think developing countries are not keeping track of past promises never kept.
In some emerging nations, especially China and Russia, <strong>the</strong> state retains a near-monopoly on political power
and <strong>the</strong> new tycoons do not have outsized influence over government and military affairs. Elsewhere,
however, <strong>the</strong> new billionaires have indeed become a new plutocracy. With heavy industry accelerating its
migration from north to south, <strong>the</strong>se emerging-markets plutocrats have accumulated enormous power over
carbon emissions. As <strong>the</strong> world’s carbon footprint is shifting, so is <strong>the</strong> decision-making over whe<strong>the</strong>r to
adopt new carbon-reducing industrial technologies, whe<strong>the</strong>r to finance a new dam or coal-fired power plant,
or whe<strong>the</strong>r to spread suburban subdivisions across rural hinterlands.
In terms of political/diplomatic power, <strong>the</strong>se new oligarchs are primarily national in focus ra<strong>the</strong>r than
transnational. There have been some attempts at mimicking <strong>the</strong> West’s elite forums, such as <strong>the</strong> Boao <strong>Forum</strong>
For Asia and <strong>the</strong> Fa<strong>the</strong>rs and Sons triennial meeting in Latin America. But <strong>the</strong>se are quite incipient, and <strong>the</strong>
elites of Asia and Africa could be described as oligarchs without an oligarchy—that is, part of a Superclass
that has not yet developed <strong>the</strong> interlocking, mind-meld institutionality of <strong>the</strong> old trans-Atlantic elites. (Latin
America is a slightly different case, because its old upper class has been able to maintain much of its
traditional cohesion.) However, in terms of economic power, developing nations’ new oligarchies have gained
a truly transnational reach. Russian tycoons, for example, now own much of <strong>the</strong> remaining industrial
infrastructure in <strong>the</strong> U.S. Rust Belt, from steel mills to coal mines.
China, of course, is a case unto itself. Despite its emergent economic might and explosive ecological impact
on <strong>the</strong> world, it has spawned a relatively small number of billionaires because most of China’s industrial firms
are owned by local governments and government-owned banks. These new managerial/entrepreneurial elites
are nei<strong>the</strong>r fish nor fowl – nei<strong>the</strong>r strictly Communist nor capitalist, obeying some government dictates while
exercising considerable autonomy – and have stymied many of <strong>the</strong> central government’s goals of increasing
energy efficiency and moderating <strong>the</strong> use of natural resources. These elites are hidden behind an impenetrable
cloak of anonymity and bureaucratic obfuscation, making analysis extremely difficult for foreigners (and
apparently even for <strong>the</strong> central government in Beijing).
An additional analytical problem is that in many developing nations, <strong>the</strong> typically non-transparent and nature
of wealth holdings makes it difficult to identify who has what, where or why.
Methodology
Any analysis of global economic oligarchy confronts an immediate issue of methodology. In <strong>the</strong> absence of
definitive answers to this problem, IFG has adopted three basic criteria to identify <strong>the</strong> fossil fuel oligarchs
and <strong>the</strong>ir influence over our climate commons: 1) total wealth, as measured by <strong>the</strong> Forbes billionaires list; 2 2)
apparent ecological damage and carbon impact, as indicated by <strong>the</strong> types of business conducted; 3) political
favoring of carbon-intensive policies. We have not included o<strong>the</strong>r possible weightings such as finance, food
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