Monetary Elite

The monetary elite consists of wealthy families and individuals who seek to expand their wealth and influence through the development and promotion of dominant social themes.

Such themes often issue from the institutional centers of the elite's global architecture, such as the United Nations, World Bank, World Trade Organization or World Health Organization. They then are broadcast by and elaborated upon by prominent segments of the mainstream media. Thousands of opinion leaders may join in amplifying a theme. Thus the brainchild of a very few - the monetary elite -- can seem to be the work of many.

Once announced, themes such as bird flu, Islamofascism and peak oil are repeated relentlessly until much of the public accepts their fearful premises and demands action. Those with the wherewithal to provide solutions - products, services and public stock offerings - may collect vast profits even if the problem is imaginary or exaggerated and regardless of whether the offered solutions provide any actual benefit to the public.

In modern times, the monetary elite is often referred to as the "power elite." The monetary elite has attracted little modern scholarly analysis, but there are several theories, some serious and some fanciful, as to its character and composition. They include:

• The monetary elite is identified with such elusive groups as the "Illuminati," the "black church" or the "black nobility."

• The core of the monetary elite consists of the European and American banking dynasties and certain titled families.

• The core of the monetary elite includes "sub-churches' within the Roman Catholic and/or Jewish religions.

• The monetary elite includes members who claim to trace their roots to ancient times, even to Babylon and beyond, a notion that supports the conceit that they properly stand apart from the "common herd."

It is not necessary to judge which, if any, of these theories is correct to detect the manufacturing of urgent problems that are presented as needing cures that can be provided only by an elite. Signifiers of monetary elite activities include a disdain for (or ignorance concerning) free markets and an incorrigible persistence in promoting a theme even after it has been largely rejected by the public or discredited by facts that are widely known.