van der pijl-transnational classes and IR

170 NOTESthe Whitney, Perkins, Taft, Lord, Harriman, and other families) into a classicalexample of a conspiracy theory, in which the Bonesmen are also presented as theforce behind…the Russian revolution and the Nazis. On this strand of right-wingconspiracy theory, see Domhoff 1971.3 The ICC still today functions as the most comprehensive business forum committedto liberalisation, actually contemplating a transformation to a ‘World BusinessOrganisation’ parallel to the WTO but still continuing the heartland tradition of abehind-the-scenes role in that ‘much of its…work is low-profile because it involveslobbying, the results of which are never very clear or public—and technicalcommissions, whose conclusions tend sometimes to reach only a small circle ofexperts’ (FT, 8 November 1995). In a 1976 report by Rupert Murdoch to an ICCCommittee headed by Ian McGregor (two men who would play key roles inMargaret Thatcher’s attack on the British working class), it was stated that unless amassive campaign to highlight the virtues of the capitalist system was undertaken,‘the attitude of government and society towards the business community, alreadyhighly critical in many nations, could become downright hostile. And that mightmean the end of the free economic system as we know it today’ (quoted in Van derPijl 1993:52).4 To illustrate the TC’s continuing prominence, let us note that in the first ClintonAdministration alone, the President, the secretaries of state (and eight under andassistant secretaries), interior, housing and urban development, and health; theFederal Reserve chairman, budget director, as well as the ambassadors to Britain,Japan, and Mexico, have been TC members, in addition of course to a cross-sectionof the US, European, and Japanese ruling class with a token presence of pressfigures and ‘relevant’ academics and professional politicians including some fromwhat we might conveniently call ‘Her Majesty’s opposition’ (TC Membership,1994).5Cadres and the classless society1 The literature on the cadres has been explored by Marcel van Maastrigt as part ofhis studies. I owe him a debt for bringing to my attention several of the titles usedhere.2 In terms of internal stratification, data on Britain may give an indication of thestructure of the cadre stratum: level A (higher managerial, administrative orprofessional), who in Britain represent 3.1 per cent of the adult population; B(intermediate managerial, administrative or professional), 17.7 per cent; and C1(supervisory or clerical, and junior managerial, administrative or professional), 27per cent; C2 (being the skilled manual workers), 23.5 per cent (FT, 13 February1995).3 We cannot substantiate this here, but if one looks at the ‘systems’ content of a fewcurrent IPE theories, it may become clear what is intended. Apart from integrationtheory, which all along was part of the cadre/systems complex both sociologicallyand theoretically, there is of course world systems theory—although Jan NederveenPieterse has argued in a critique of Wallerstein that ‘we are dealing here with anuntheorized use of “system”…a systems rhetoric…rather than a systems theory’