Shush...it's a secret....

The Bilderberg Group held its annual meeting in Barcelona this weekend . For three days approximately 130 people, there by invitation only, discussed current affairs. The annual conference has been held in a different country since 1954 and participants are always impressive figures in politics, banking, commerce, industry and the media. In line with Bilderberg practice, no resolutions were proposed in Sitges last week, no votes were taken or policy statements issued. A list of participants can be read here

As usual the Bilderberg event has raised the hackles of many conspiracists.

" Some foolishly think their elected officials run their country in the contrived democracies in which they live. But that is just a game to keep the human cattle happy and to make them think they have some power as they are marched off to the economic slaughter houses for processing.The Bilderberg Group and the super economic elites that they represent are the powers behind our contrived democracies." said one article

"As part of Bilderberg’s agenda to “Europeanize” America and turn it into a socialist welfare state wherein its citizens are completely dependent on the government, the elite are celebrating President Obama’s support for a UN small arms treaty, which many fear could be used to impinge on the right to keep and bear arms..." said another

The stock-in-trade of the conspiracy writers is rumour, innuendo, guilt-by-association and half-knowledge passed off as fact. Take Bilderberg as the example. Yes, there is plentiful evidence that organisations like the Bilderberg group exist. Yes, there is evidence that their members are rich and powerful people with their own agendas and quite some influence. But no, there is no evidence that such organisations “rule the world” and carefully manipulate states and economies at will – and no-one has yet provided any evidence of such. The capitalist class is not a conspiracy, not because it is open and above board, but because it is not united. This disunity of the capitalist class is a weakness workers can use. If we believe our enslavers have no weaknesses, we won’t struggle against them.

Extracts from Denis Healey's autobiography that refers to his membership of the Bilderberg Group can be read here . Elsewhere he is on record dismissing the conspiracy accusations with a succinct “Crap!” and insisted that no-one at Bilderberg had ever sought consensus on big issues. “It’s simply a place for discussion,” he said, but at the same time recognised that while it might be an exaggeration to claim that Bilderberg wanted a one-world government, neither was it entirely unfair. “We felt we couldn’t go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. We felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing.”

Capitalism has an impossible long way to travel before it becomes Lord Healey’s “single community” - only socialism can create a world without commercial competition or rivalry between nation states.

The Socialist Standard featured an article back in 2002 on the Bilderberg Group that is worthy of reading .