Joining the Superclass

I’ve just started reading David Rothkopf’s “Superclass,” about the global elite and how they live. His definition is rather narrow, these 6,000 or so CEOs, government leaders, financiers, and military officials who project incredible international power. Now I know I’m still far removed from that particular class, but I’ve been thinking a lot in the last two weeks, especially with my trip to Helsinki in the middle of it, about how in the last two years I’ve joined the unique global educated elite.
As I’ve been traveling around the country in recent months for my book, I’ve been meeting up with friends in every city that I visit — friends accumulated from college, work, or any number of the conferences that I’ve attended. I know in just about any city in the country and in most major cities around the globe there’ll be someone that I know. Today I even complained to a friend overseas that she was writing her Facebook status updates in a language I didn’t understand. This weekend I’ll be seeing some of the people who I met in Helsinki last week, who are we visiting Washington this weekend for work. Many of the people at last week’s conference had lived or worked overseas, and a few of them had even moved back and forth from the Nordic countries to the United States and back again. The increasingly porous borders of the European Union make moving around ever easier. My friends will debate things like the merits of dual citizenship that allows them to move and travel more easily. These are all opportunities, problems, and benefits of a very narrow global population.
On Tuesday I had drinks with a friend and we were comparing the shopping scene in Shanghai and Buenos Aires when I stopped and noted how rare this conversation would have been either for the 3 billion or so people in the world who will rarely if ever leave their home villages or for any number of our parents’ or grandparents’ generation. All told, according to the map on my Facebook page, I’ve visited some 10% of the world’s countries — and I feel like I am one of the less well-traveled of my friends.
Living in Washington and working at the Washingtonian, I also at least have access to the “superclass.” We eat at the same restaurants, go to the same places, and once or twice a month at least I find myself talking to one of them. Much of the opening of the “Superclass” focuses on Davos and the World Economic Forum, which while I’ve never attended does at least impact my life as sources head overseas and schedules get rearranged. I even had one college class start with the professor giving his first lecture via satellite link from Switzerland.
One of the stories in “Superclass” that I found most familiar was an anecdote of a billionaire in first-class realizing that the woman next to him had attended kindergarten with him; when he said, “Small world,” she replied, “At the top.” That’s certainly how it feels to me often enough.