Optimización para el modelo condensador-impedancia

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relations with Iran, as well as Brazil, and to lesser extend China and India, who have not joined the US led sanctions against this ‘rogue state’. Thus, only Latin American globalization is working against the civilizing mission on both political and economic level. (Mercosur 2012.)

5.3.3. Policy Planning Groups

According to William Carroll (2010), there are five leading international policy planning groups.

The oldest one is the International Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1919. Other four are Bilderberg Conference, gathered first time in 1952, World Economic Forum, founded in 1971, Trilateral Commission, 1973 and World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 1995. Two minor global policy groups include the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations and UN Global Compact. All these groups provide policy guidelines and a network based framework for global economic and political elites in forging a vision for the peace and development of the world. (Carroll & Carson 2006, 56; Carroll 2010, 180.) In the sense of their goals, they are advocates of a better future for the whole planet professing a civilizational paradigm based on the notions of free markets, liberalization and economic cooperation, which not only serve the interests of capitalists class, but the interests of the whole humanity – the basic argument in any civilizational discourse of legitimacy.

On regional level, we have again various groups of transnationals, like European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT), BusinessEurope (BE), two European lobby groups, Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) and from US the Coalition of Service Industry (CSI), North American Competitiveness Council and EU-Japan Business Roundtable, all of whom follow the same logic of liberalization, flexible labour markets and competition. Member companies are often members of both the global and regional groups, and they share commitment to WTO’s agreements. (Carroll 2010, 44-45, 181.) Let us first look at the global, then regional groups.

International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) “considers the integration of business and economic concerns into policy-making” as necessary feature of a balanced and progressive society, “where peace and prosperity are a shared objective”. It is then a policy advocacy group, with membership consisting of CEO’s from world’s leading companies, and main targets being both international forums but also national governments. Providing policy recommendations for United Nations, WTO and G20, it is an important agent of international rule making. (ICC 2012a.) ICC has been publishing widely accepted rules for international trade terms, Intercoms, since 1936, and its banking commission is leading rule making body in banking industry with well over 500 members.

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(ICC 2012b). Its’ global influence is based on wide membership: With hundreds of thousands of member companies and associations in over 120 countries, its’ “unrivalled access to national governments and top international officials who make decisions affecting corporate performance”, which open “the door to the corridors of power” on domestic level, and on same is true on the international arena, where “ICC’s privileged links with major intergovernmental organizations, including the World Trade Organization, enable the voice of business to be heard at the international level”. (ICC 2012c.) ICC’ policy commissions work in following fields (ICC 2012b):

Banking, commercial law and practice, corporate responsibility and anti-corruption, marketing and advertising, competition policy, electronic business IT and telecoms, environment and energy, intellectual property, taxation, trade and investment policy, customs and trade regulations, and transport and logistics.

World Economic Forum (WEF) “encourages businesses, governments and civil society to commit together to improving the state of the world”. Key challenges include “building sustained economic growth, mitigating global risks, promoting health for all, improving social welfare and fostering environmental sustainability”.(WEF 2012a.) The Forum´s task already for three decades has been to provide assessment on economic policy and productive potential of world’s different economies from the perspective of long term development and growth. The Global Competitiveness Reports published by the Forum has served as an important tool of policy making. In 2005 World Economic Forum also started to index the level of competitiveness which is seen as a major factor in increasing the wealth of nations (Schwab 2011, 4):

We define competitiveness as the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country. The level of productivity, in turn, sets the level of prosperity that can be earned by an economy.

The informal meetings of WEF were firstly organized by Klaus Schwab, business policy expert.

The yearly meetings in Davos bring together politicians from cabinets of major countries, heads of the global executive and leaders of major corporations. (Carroll 2010, 44.) Like ICC, WEF is comprised of member companies, but its membership base is much smaller, although not less significant. Typical member enterprise has a turnover of 5 billion dollars, and there are 1000 founding members, who form the heart of WEF’s all activities, who are the motors of global growth and who are leading market position in their respective field of specialization. In 2007 another group was formed, the Community of Global Growth Companies (GGC), who have the potential of being tomorrow’s leading enterprises. As for 2012, this group was comprised of 360 members. To be eligible for the GGC, company must be able to demonstrate annual revenue between US$ 100 million and US$ 5 billion. (WEF 2012b). Thus, WEF’s is organized around a “highly elite core”,

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unlike the more inclusive ICC, Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg Conference (Carroll ibid.).

WEF is also engaged in leadership education, having close ties with CEIBS, Columbia University, INSEAD, the London Business School and the Wharton School in a program of Global Leadership Fellows Program (WEF 2012c).

The Bilderberg conference is often linked with conspiracy theories, because of secrecy of its meetings and high level attendance of elected government officials. In 2009 and 2010 meetings Finnish finance minister Jyrki Katainen, now serving prime minister, attended the conference.

Katainen is also chairman of the Finnish Right, the National Coalition Party. In 2012, the now serving finance minister Jutta Urpilainen, chairman for the Finnish Social Democratic Party, attended the meeting held in United States. (Finnish Ministry of Finance 2012). EU-critical Finnish scholars Ilkka Hakalehto and Veli Karhu regard the group as one form of shadow government, which provides the participant with policy guidelines and recommendations. They even suspect that Finland was chosen as the resort of the 1994 meeting, in which the then serving president Martti Ahtisaari and the prime minister Esko Aho attended, to push the Finnish government in further indebtedness. According to Hakalehto and Karhu, the banking dynasties of Rockefeller´s and Rothschild´s are behind a major part of loans to world´s governments, and Bilderberg group would serve as a link between policy makers and the banking giants. (Hakalehto & Karhu 1994, 68, 72, 73). However, in the official web portal, “no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued”. Rather, Bilderberg provides forum for “informal and off-the-record discussion about topics of current concern especially in the fields of foreign affairs and the international economy”. (Bilderberg Conference 2012.)

Bilderberg has no guaranteed membership, but is does have a permanent steering committee with 32 members, chairman and member advisory group. Present chairman is CEO for AXA Group, Henri de Castries, member advisory group is comprised of David Rockefeller, and the 32 members include corporative leaders like Jorma Ollilla (Royal Dutch Shell) from Finland, financial sector agents like Jacob Wallenberg (Investor AB) from Sweden, Sutherland Peter (Goldman Sachs International) from Ireland, one journalist, Matthias Nass (die Zeit) from Germany, one university professor, and former and serving government officials. Most of the members come from multinational corporations. (Bilderberger Conference 2012.)

William Carroll defines Bilderberger Conference as a consensus seeking forum for neoliberalism (Carroll 2010, 40). In line with Carroll's interpretation, there seems to exist a connection between economic elites and political elites facilitated by Bilderberger Conference. Its corporate basis of

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steering committee, and its ad hoc invitations for politicians provides it with good networks and ties with political decision makers as well as policy planning groups and institutinal actors of international political economy. A former member of Bilderberger's steering committee, Klaus Schwab, founded the World Economic Forum (WEF). Etienne Davignon who served as European Commissioner for Industry and the Single Market, also used to serve as Bilderberger chairman. He was one of the brains behind European Roundtable for Industrials (ERT), a major European based institutional actor. In 1983, during his post as a Commissioner, Davignon is quoted saying: “whom do I call when I want to speak to European Industry?” Finally, more than ICC and WEF, Bilderberg is a Western based group. There are no past or present members from Asian countries, Africa, Russia or Latin America. (ERT Highlights 2012, 7; Bilderberger Conference 2012.)

In 1973 Trilateral Commission (TC) was launched from within the Bilderberg group by David Rockefeller to tackle the relatively narrow membership basis of Bilderberger's. It was directed against the Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy in order to expand the scope of international cooperation. The core areas of world economy no longer were encompassed within the confines of Attlantic and European states but included Japan and the Pacific area. As the first director of TC Rockefeller annointed Zbigniew Brezinski, a political scientists who had been writing about the rise of Japan and a major international player. (Gill 2012, 512-513.)

Although seeking transparency by providing sophisticated publications and reflecting issues of common interest for example in case of the Syrian conflict, William Carroll defines TC as a consultative ruling-class forum that brings ”together transnationalized fractions of the business, political and intellectual elite during several yearly meetings, which it convenes at the national, regional and plenary levels.” TC seeks to “institutionalize elite economic, political and intellectual/cultural bonds between the North Atlantic heartland and the Asia-Pacific”. (Carroll 2010, 42.)

TC´s publications include themes like global economic crisis, nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, climate change and energy scarcity and Iran and peace in the Middle East. It tries to face the growing interdependence of the different regions of the world and the change in the political and economic importance of the Atlantic region in favour of the Pacific by means of a triangular cooperation between Europe, North America and East Asia most notably Japan. TC acknowledges the social implications of the economic crisis and the problems of the financial system striving for a system of global governance (Trilateral Commission 2012).

World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is the most recent of these five

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policy agency groups. It could be described as the green consciousness of global capitalism moving beyond neoliberal structuralism to have a regulative stand on the markets. Issues like environmental problems, socio economic gaps between the rich and poor, peripheries and centers, the uneven development, and gender issues are on its agenda. Free markets are not necessarily fair, and today’s outcomes bear witness to the problems of unfettered or unregulated markets. The need of common rules and objectives regarding the above issues is recognized under the notion of “freer and fairer trade”. Thus, Council is not working against free trade. There is a demand for regulation and business-conscience (Carroll 2010, 44, 45; WBCSD 2012a, 12-13). Founded in 1992, WBCSD “is a CEO-led organization of forward-thinking companies that galvanizes the global business community to create a sustainable future for business, society and the environment.” It has 60 regional councils with majority in developing countries. Leadership comprises of CEO's from 200 companies representing all business sectors. (WBCSD 2012.)