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Peter Phillips, professor of political sociology at Sonoma State U. explains who really runs the world, as richly detailed in his new book, Giants: The Global Power Elite.Phillips was director of Project Censored, which covers the news that’s ignored or omitted from mainstream media, from 1996 to 2010. Order his new book here, don’t give the profit to Amazon.
We begin by acknowledging the “truth emergency” that was declared by Phillips and others more than 10 years ago, which has only deepened. We talk about the recent reports about the work of American-based global consulting firms like Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Booz Allen Hamilton, supporting clients who are dictators and authoritarian, and often at odds with US policies.
From there, we discuss the incestuous interlocking ownership and pool of board members of the 17 top financial firms who dominate the world economy and exert direct and indirect influence on political structures. Phillips describes how $41 trillion is controlled by these interests, run by a small cohort of the “superclass”.
And we touch on the corporate media–whose top 6 corporations are largely owned by those 17 leading companies–and how our news is spun and packaged by ad agencies and PR firms.