Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Are Upending Our Democracy

By Janine Wedel, AlterNet
Posted on February 4, 2010, Printed on February 5, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145533/

Editor's Note: Any time you turn on the television these days, you'll find pundits sounding off on the policy debate du jour. Labeled something along the lines of "military experts" or "Democratic consultants," you have to wonder what they're hiding behind those vague-sounding titles. In an era when mainstream media turns to punditry to shape the American public's view of the most important policy issues, it's worth looking into who these so-called experts are and what effect they're having on our society. As Janine R. Wedel writes in her new book, Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market (excerpted below), the rise of a new breed of confidence men and women -- think-tank members, government advisers, business consultants and television pundits -- upend our democracy. Because they are technically individual actors, they claim to hold no allegiances; in fact, they usually hold too many.

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We live in a world of flexibility. We have flex time, flex workers, flex spending, flex enrollment, flex cars, flex technology, flex perks, mind flex—even flex identities. “Flex" has become an integral part not only of how we live, but of how power and influence are wielded. While influencers flex their roles and representations, organizations, institutions, and states, too, must be flexible in ways they haven’t been before. The mover and shaker who serves at one and the same time as business consultant, think-tanker, TV pundit, and government adviser glides in and around the organizations that enlist his services. It is not just his time that is divided. His loyalties, too, are often flexible. Even the short-term consultant doing one project at a time cannot afford to owe too much allegiance to the company or government agency. Such individuals are in these organizations (some of the time anyway), but they are seldom of them.