are very well paid, making it possible to rapidly accumulate assets and, if not already wealthy, join the capitalist class in a relatively short time. This group is a very small percentage of the U.S. population. Official wealth statistics show that the top 1 percent of U.S. households had an average wealth of $19 million in 2007, dropping to $14 million in 2009. In contrast, 37.1 percent of U.S. households had a net worth of less than $12,000, and 24.8 percent had a zero or negative net worth.36
At the $10 million level, or as a top corporate executive or law firm partner, an individual member of the capitalist class does not ever have to enter the labor market, hat in hand, to seek a job. If employed—an option, not a requirement for much of the capitalist class—he or she often works for the family corporation, or, through ownership and connections, gets a comfortable and well-paid corporate position. Some top capitalist-class institutions also use the $10 million figure as a cutoff point. The Private Wealth Management unit of the JPMorgan Chase Bank, for example, has decided not to include clients with less than $10 million in financial assets, since their coverage model, using an integrated team of specialist advisers to meet the client’s investing, wealth transfer, credit, and philanthropic needs, is most profitable when limited to only high-net-worth individuals and families.37
Viewing the percentage of wealth (total net worth) owned and controlled by key groups is also instructive. In 2010 the top 1 percent owned about 35 percent of total U.S. wealth. The next 4 percent had 28 percent, and the 15 percent after that owned 26 percent. The top 5 percent thus had 63 percent, and the top 20 percent had 89 percent of total U.S. wealth. The top about 20 percent together make up the capitalist class and the professional class, with the dividing line difficult to determine as some individuals from the professional class are rising into the ranks of the capitalists. The bottom 80 percent of the population, approximately corresponding to the working class, owned only 11 percent of the wealth. Financial wealth is even more concentrated.38
The World Wealth Report by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management has recently estimated the wealth of the world capitalist class. In 2010, the wealth of the world’s eleven million super-rich individuals stood at $43 trillion, or 70 percent of global gross domestic product.39 The U.S. capitalist class held more of that wealth than any other national capitalist class. The 2011 Capgemini/Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report found that North America (United States and Canada) had 3.4 million high-net-worth individuals worth a total of $11.6 trillion. Forty thousand ultra-high-net-worth individuals, over half of them living in a few large cities, held the bulk of this wealth. The Asia-Pacific and European regions were second and third with $10.8 and $10.2 trillion held by high-net-worth individuals respectively. These three world regions, and especially the top nations and key cities within them, held the vast majority of the world’s wealth. Among U.S. cities, New York, the headquarters of both finance capital (Wall Street) and the CFR, had by far the largest number of super-rich (roughly three times as many as second-place Los Angeles), with San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Houston, and Dallas rounding out the top seven.40 Although London is also important, New York is the top command center of the world economy, controlling a large percentage of the world’s finances. It was ranked number one in 2012 and 2014 articles on the world’s most economically powerful cities, with London in second place.41
The capitalist class of the United States is by far the most organized, class-conscious, and powerful segment of society. It has, in fact, more power than any ruling class in world history. It has its own expensive private schools for its children, such as college “prep” schools at the high school level, as well as the eastern “Ivy League” private universities, like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia, and elite outposts around the nation like Stanford and the University of Chicago. It has its own luxurious “high society” culture and lifestyle. Families in this class tend to intermarry, strengthening their connections and economic and political power. They are also usually open to allowing well-educated members of the professional class to enter their ranks, as long as these newcomers want to be of service to the capitalist class and are willing to adhere to the cultural, social, and political norms of their betters. The CFR is one place where such ambitious outsiders meet and form alliances with members of the capitalist class. Just one example illustrates the possibilities: William Jefferson Clinton was not born into a capitalist-class family, but he was intelligent and ambitious, worked to become a professional by gaining a college education, and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in England. He ran for political office and was, with the help of capitalist-class member Madeleine K. Albright, able to become a member of the Council in the 1980s. The contacts he made at the CFR helped him get the favorable media attention, funding, and top advisers to validate his candidacy and successfully become president. He brought many fellow Council members into leading positions in his administration, and implemented a raft of pro-capitalist CFR policies. Once out of office, lucrative speaking engagements and book deals made him wealthy, a member of the capitalist class himself, with his own foundation. One estimate is that by 2014 he had $80 million in personal assets, another estimate puts the total at $38 million.42 He was also able to bring his daughter Chelsea into the CFR, allowing her to expand her network to the rich, well-educated, and powerful people that she will meet at the Council. This is a common pattern: CFR members often bring relatives into the organization to promote individual and family agendas.
In the United States the capitalist class is numerically a large group, amounting to tens of thousands of extended families. These families usually maintain close ties with one another because their wealth is tied up in corporations with shared ownership and control, and inheritance generally depends upon blood relationships. Within wealthy circles, the age of the fortune is one key source of internal differentiation. Members of the old plutocracy, dominant in the CFR’s early history, are usually included in the Social Register, a book that lists and promotes social relationship among the “prominent” families (that is, those wealthy for a long time) of the United States. These old plutocratic families have also, whatever the original source of their wealth, usually diversified it, especially into finance but also into other sectors of the economy. They are also more transnational: they and their corporations have invested significant amounts overseas. Newer wealth is usually more concentrated in one industry, such as manufacturing or trade. Newer wealth also tends to be more locally and nationally based. The capitalist class also supports both the Democratic and Republican parties, with the newer, more localized rich more strongly supporting Republicans and the financialized old rich more balanced in their support for both “moderate” Democrats and “moderate” Republicans. But all sectors of the U.S. capitalist class organize their economic power through the corporate system, which they control, as families and as a class. If the modern corporation is one of the key locations in which the power of the capitalist class is institutionally crystallized, another central place of capitalist-class power is the Council on Foreign Relations and its larger network of associated organizations. The activities of the CFR are one important way that this class organizes itself, develops a generalized unity, and projects itself and its special class interests (portrayed by the Council, of course, as the general interest) upon the national and world stage. The CFR’s key role is to move the capitalist class from being a class in itself (the owners of the corporate-dominated economic system) to a class for itself (with consciousness, agency, and heightened power).
This chapter discusses the capitalist-class representation in the CFR during the 1976–2014 years. Since the Council has both individual and corporate membership categories, both individuals and corporate members are included. Professionals also appear, as they are important to the intellectual functioning of the Council, but it must be kept in mind that they are primarily present in an advisory role. Although many professionals may be on their way up the power and wealth ladder into the capitalist class, all final decisions are still reserved for their capitalist masters.
When examining the CFR leadership as a group, their close relationship to the federal government is striking. Many CFR leaders are “in-and-outers.” These individuals often have a primary career, typically in finance, business, law, politics, or academic life, but are appointed to high political office by a given U.S. president, serve a few years, then return to “private enterprise,” sometimes including nonprofit work. These individuals often are a kind of access entrepreneur, who use connections acquired in government service to afterward