Seen This Picture Before

 “The New Power Elite” by Heather Gautney, 2022

This is not a book about a ‘new power elite’ – it is a book about the history of U.S. neo-liberalism from its roots in the 1970s. And that book has already been written 30 times. There is absolutely nothing new in this book. If you are almost unfamiliar with the history of this period, then buy it. However, it is written by a Bernie Sanders staffer who is a professor of sociology at Fordham and is on the ‘Biden-Sanders Task Force on Education.’ How's that going? She’s a Democratic Party political wonk who has done no original research here. It's basically a lit review.  If there is an example of self-preening, predictable left-liberalism, this is it.

A look at the index is revealing – not one listing on terms like Marx, fascism, socialism or capitalism. Just a plethora of names from the news – the Koch Brothers, Trump, the Sacklers, Colin Powell, Friedman, Facebook, Limbaugh, blah, blah, blah. Neo-liberalism takes the place of capitalism in the text. No solutions are proposed. No real problematic issues are raised, like the Democratic Party itself and its own power elite. There is no economic analysis and only the slightest attempt at a class analysis – just vague mentions of 'the elite.' Nothing is said about the state of the working-class. Movements are almost invisible. There are no predictions. There is barely a fact that is not already well-known to those on the actual Left.

In fact it is an insult to C. Wright Mills to steal his book’s name and pretend to extend his analysis with ‘new’ control figures. “Giants – the New Global Elite” is actually that book. (Reviewed below). “The Capitalists of the 21^st Century” is also new research. (Reviewed below). So is Roberts and Carchedi’s “Capitalism in the 21^st Century.” (Reviewed below). Even Piketty did better than this.

Who runs Fordham? Who runs the U.S.? Who runs U.S. capitalism? Who runs the world? Who has the actual power? Who owns what? What are the capitalist factions? A list of names from the news is actually not enough to answer these questions, except as a jumble. Perhaps being a professor is a hindrance in itself.

Prior reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms: ““Giants – the New Global Elite” (Phillips); “The Capitalists of the 21^st Century” (Rügemer); “Capitalism in the 21^st Century” (Roberts-Carchedi).

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

June 8, 2023