This is basically the view presented by the Domhoff/Avery/Floyd Hunter-derived “left” trend in academic Sociology which produced the old “Insurgent Sociologist” journal which in the mid seventies presented a series of studies of Family Offices, notable of the Rockefeller and Weyerhauser same. At present this and more recent work in this “tradition” is accessible through Dr Val Burris “Power Structure Research” website at the U of Oregon.

So I don’t see that it nec. makes sense to counterpoise “the cartels” to
“the banks” when both are very likely owned by the same people or their close relatives.

I DO think it is relevant to note that the Federal Reserve system, which is the primary money-creating agent operating in the Dollar world, is disproportionately staffed in its higher levels by pro-Israel, pro-AIPAC persons of Jewish background. Let’s see, when was the last time a non-Jewish person headed the Fed? Who was the last non-Jewish Secretary of the Treasury? Shall we also glance at the World Bank? the IMF?

Speaking of “cartels”, how about Halliburton? Last time I visited the Lehman Bros homepage, that member of the top handful of investment banking firms was bragging how it had financed the rise of Halliburton and of Kellogg, Brown & Root/KBR “from early Texas wildcat days”. So which is the “tail” & which the “dog” in the Banker/Industrialist relationship might be a subject for some sociological research?

We do know that John F Lehman was a key member of the “Kean Commission” assigned to prevent investigation of what really happened on Sept 11 2001. Was this a coincidence?

BTW, John Mearsheimer is now on the Advisory Board of “Foreign Affairs”, even though fired from his Kennedy School of Government chair at Harvard. And it has so far proved impossible to get even the stooges running the Iraqi puppet “government” to pass the “Oil Law” to privatize that nation’s petroleum industry & reserves.

Which raises again the question: how many barrels per day is Iraq now exporting? What’s the total that has been exported since Dubya announced “Mission Accomplished”? How do the prices paid compare with those paid during the Saddam era?

It’s interesting to me that various voices try to contradict the thesis advanced in Dr Jas Petras book “The Power of Israel in the United States” by going off on various tangents — but nobody takes him on directly. So until somebody does, and does so convincingly, I think I’ll stick with his take: this aggression against Iraq is for the benefit of Israel and the US Zionist Power Configuration, not the oil industry “majors”.

On the face of it, the money is in the banks. In literally unlimited quantities, too. There is no practical limit on how much credit any accredited actor (say, Bear Sterns) can ‘create’, in the sense of arbitarily overvaluing existing assets and using them as collateral for yet more acquisitions, which then become equally over-priced assets, and so on.

On the face of it, bankers and their minions are running everything. Thus, the unreconstructed ‘anti-capitalist’ theory which is most popular in the USA is, not “expropriate the bourgeoisie”, but “expropriate the bankers”. The pseudo left version of this is the version I referred to elsewhere which appeals to Major Douglas or similar advocates of an interest-free currency created and spent into circulation by the Treasury (as opposed to the current system, where the banks lend ‘money’ into circulation as interest-bearing credit).

However, all serious Marxists have had it dinned into them – quite correctly – that the moment the public starts talking about expropriating the banks, they are speaking on behalf of the industrialists, not on their own behalf. Obviously, the industrialists (if there still are any Henry Ford type tycoons) hate the bankers, who have historically engaged in waves of boom-and-bust manipulation in order to expropriate the industrialists (and before them the farmers).

Thus, the question Nitzan and Bichler raise is fundamental, and I have boiled it down to a simple and easily remembered question : do the cartels own the banks, or do the banks own the cartels?

Upon this question depend the prospects for defusing the ever proliferating mythology of how all US’s problems arise because the jewish bankers favour israel. I’m only stating the obvious here, though I am breaching a taboo slightly to do it.

Well, said Power Complex certainly seems to think it makes a difference, to the point where they go to a lot of trouble to make sure there is as little discussion of these questions as possible.

So let’s posit the alternative hypotheses advanced by various “left” voices, & try to deduce what differences in Grand Strategy, tactics & methods would be required of our contemporary equivalent of a “Modern Prince”, should one or another picture of the loci and internal organization of power be proven to be qualitatively more reflective of the existing facts, both “on the ground” & in the skyscrapers.

Suppose the power of the US Jewish Establishment is really, as authorities as diverse as Dr Dershowitz, Dr Chomsky, and CounterPunch writer Ron Jacobs maintain, just a footnote to the history-making process, merely an incidental curious feature of US Globalized Imperialism; that neither AIPAC nor its network of allied organizations have the power to substantially affect US foreign/military/colonial policy.

Wouldn’t this mean that our best bet for ending the Iraq War & restoring New Orleans would be to support Hillary Clinton? Who seems to be head & shoulders more professionally competent than the Demo competitors, and assuming the electorate to be at least momentarily tired of Republicans?

The alternative would be to believe what James Petras is telling us, which would lead to the conclusion that no Democrat can be trusted, that the leaders of Labor are all phonies, that the so-called alternative press is really no alternative at all, and that the biggest problem is not really AIPAC & the Ziocons at all, but The Jewish United Front! By which is meant the cross-class alliance of persons whose self-identification as Jewish moves them to react negatively to any attention whatsoever paid to Jewish affluence, whether that of the Salaried Professional or of the 24pct of US Billionaires who “happen to be Jewish”.

Well, maybe this attempt to define the problem leaves a little to be desired, but I can’t spend all day on it so I’ll leave it to the next interested party. Compliments & thanks to Mssrs Brooks & Berkeley, also to the other commenters for advancing the discussion to this point:)

To further illustrate the complexities of this matter, let me point out that the geo-strategic context within which Schmitt presented his ideas was … that of a country trapped in penury by the anglo-american financial system (at that time still gold-based).

I become more and more certain that the only way to resolve the fundamental historical dispute here is to provide what I previously called “an objective sociology of the élite” (though Gabriel Ash immediately picked me up on this). What I require is not so much a list of the names of supposed “élite members” as a theoretical account of the degree of autonomy of the contemporary banker. If, as I believe Messrs Nitzan & Bichler would agree, nowadays the cartels own the banks rather than the banks owning the cartels, then the historical fact of jewish dominance of international finance,in the days when it WAS autonomous becomes irrelevant, you see?

The propaganda machinery continues to work overtime to marginalize and “associate” through symbols of demonization. But, at some point the wheel stops spinning and the day of reakoning will approach. Yes, it may be in the form of a world wide depression; a financial crisis whose consequences will not be fully known until they are played out for decades.

Much of the elite still has a knee-jerk reaction dating from cold war days that the US is automatically right. The even have trouble accepting that Russia is a democracy. Equally, the business community, in which there is a significant Jewish presence, is only slowly discovering that globalisation benefits only the American super-rich, not them. Add to that the US stranglehold on the world economy, based on the dollar’s role as world reserve currency and US military might. Both of those are well on the way to being broken, the process is not complete yet.

Hence, Europe’s elite talks out of both sides of their mouths. The pay lip service to the US, and that is played up in the US and Israeli media, but they then act to keep Europe out of any fighting. EU/Russian stalling has largely saved Iran from attack. EU reluctance to withold funds from the Palestinian Government forced the US and Israel to seize the first available pretext to resume payments. EU troops are protecting Lebanese civilians from Israeli attack but are not taking any action against Hezbollah. Most NATO troops in Afghanistan take no part in the fighting, by decision of their governments.

The idea that Europe is blindly following Bush has been carefully cultivated by European leaders and most Americans seem to have fallen for it. But just look at the amount of hostility being spewed at Europe on neocon/Israel Lobby sites like National Review Online! They’re not fooled!