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Powerful People
Forbes Magazine, the poster boy for unbridled capitalism (“We are fascinated by power. We stand in awe of those who apply it adroitly — and in fear of those who abuse it. We lust for power. Everyone would rather be a hammer than a nail”) just picked its list of “The Most Powerful People on Earth, 2010”. The criteria for their choice are interesting.
Contrary to the popular aphorism, it seems that size does matter: for heads-of-state Forbes considered their respective populations, for media moguls they factored in the size of their audiences. While it may not guarantee a place in heaven, money also matters, so for the political big wigs, GDP numbers loom large.
It was then decided that power is amplified to the extent that it is deployed in as diverse arenas as possible. Silvio Berlusconi, the irrepressible PM of Italy, evidently boosted his rankings because he is not only a billionaire but the owner of a media empire and a soccer team to boot. It was not mentioned whether the deployment of his power to facilitate his sexual peccadilloes earned him any spurs.
Finally the top guns had to actively use their power (use it or lose it) to make in into the rankings: Sam Walton, one of the richest persons on the planet – and owner of Wal-Mart, the largest chain of stores in the world – but one of the most reclusive, couldn’t make the cut.
With all of that, it was of some surprise to us that Hu Jintao, President of China, was selected by the editors of Forbes as “The most powerful person on earth, 2010”. He actually pipped Barack Obama – President of the US. Their appraisal of Hu Jintao was revealing – of how the west views China: “Paramount political leader of more people than anyone else on the planet; exercises near dictatorial control over 1.3 billion people, one-fifth of world’s population. Unlike Western counterparts, Hu can divert rivers, build cities, jail dissidents and censor Internet without meddling from pesky bureaucrats, courts.
His country recently surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy both in absolute and purchasing power terms. Credible estimates have China poised to overtake U.S. as world’s largest economy in 25 years — although, crucially, not on a per-capita basis. The creditor nation oversees world’s largest reserves at $2.65 trillion — $1.5 trillion of which is in U.S. dollar holdings, and refuses to kowtow to U.S. pressure to change its exchange-rate regime. Hu heads the world’s largest army (in size).”
Obama’s profile that made him slide to the #2 spot, was typically (for US commentators) driven by immediate concerns: “Obama’s Democrats suffered a mighty blow in U.S. midterm elections, with the president decisively losing support of the House of Representatives, and barely holding onto the Senate. It’s quite a come-down for last year’s most powerful person, who after enacting widespread reforms in his first two years in office will be hard-pressed to implement his agenda in the next two. He can take comfort in the fact that he remains commander-in-chief of world’s largest, deadliest military, leader of world’s largest (in spending) and most dynamic economy and holds the unofficial title of “Leader of the Free World.”
We believe that a more reliable indicator of how the power relations stack up in 2010 would be to review how matters turned out at the G20 meeting of last month to decide the power relations with the IMF. Even though it was touted (by the IMF head) as “historic” because it increased China’s voting strength to 6.19%, the US’s share remained untouched at 16.7%, allowing it to retain a veto over IMF’s decisions – which needs an 85% vote.
More importantly, even as the US debt piles up and its economy plummets, the quotas of the members of the IMF were doubled.
This decision offers a lifeline to the organisation (controlled by the US) that was floundering before the financial crisis and gives that country a counterweight to the huge surpluses that China and other trade-surplus countries have built up in the last decade.
Let’s not kid ourselves: Obama is still #1.
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