ABSTRACT
In the twenty-first century, it is arguably the case that no signifier exerts as much socioeconomic force as money. Dollars, Euros, Sterling, Yen: money – and the lavish display of all that money can buy – has been raised to the second power in defining the lifestyles of the global elite. Today’s cultural fascination with mega-wealth is increasingly evident in various displays of lavish, conspicuous consumption – from $US100+ million homes and personal tropical islands to 500-foot super-yachts and personal jets. Culture in the expensive, polished cites of the West is a form of life that, seemingly automatically, bends the knee at all signs of extreme wealth. If this is true of the global field of fame and celebrity, it is equally true of a new corporate elite and the super-rich. The emergence of a new transnational corporate elite – whom I shall call, following Zygmunt Bauman, ‘the globals’ – is intricately interwoven with the formation of integrated global financial markets and interlocking information networks. The globals are those contemporary women and men roaming the planet through multiple mobilities and mutliplex careers – overseeing vast capital investments, transnational operations, endless organizational downsizings and corporate remodellings.
