The Bilderberg meeting (also known as the Bilderberg Group) is an annual off-the-record
conference
A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic.
Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main p ...
established in 1954 to foster dialogue between
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
. The group's agenda, originally to prevent another
world war
A world war is an international conflict which involves all or most of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World WarI (1914 ...
, is now defined as bolstering a consensus around
free market
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any o ...
Western
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
and its interests around the globe. Participants include
political leaders,
experts
An expert is somebody who has a broad and deep understanding and competence in terms of knowledge, skill and experience through practice and education in a particular field. Informally, an expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable so ...
, captains of
industry
Industry may refer to:
Economics
* Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity
* Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery
* The wider industrial sector ...
,
finance
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...
,
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
, numbering between 120 and 150. Attendees are entitled to use information gained at meetings, but not attribute it to a named speaker (known as the
Chatham House Rule
Under the Chatham House Rule, anyone who comes to a meeting is free to use information from the discussion, but is not allowed to reveal who made any particular comment. It is designed to increase openness of discussion. The rule is a system for h ...
). This is to encourage candid debate, while maintaining privacy—a provision that has fed conspiracy theories from both the
left
Left may refer to:
Music
* ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006
* ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016
* "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996
Direction
* Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right
* L ...
and
right
Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of Liberty, freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convent ...
.
Meetings were chaired by
Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. ...
until 1975. The current Chairman is French businessman
Henri de Castries. Since 1954, the meeting has taken place every year except in 1976, when it was cancelled due to the
Lockheed bribery scandals
The Lockheed bribery scandals encompassed a series of bribes and contributions made by officials of U.S. aerospace company Lockheed from the late 1950s to the 1970s in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft.
The scandal caused consid ...
involving Prince Bernhard, and in 2020 and 2021 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
.
Origin
The first conference was held at the Bilderberg Hotel (Hotel de Bilderberg) in
Oosterbeek
Oosterbeek is a village in the eastern part of Netherlands. It is located in the municipality of Renkum in the province of Gelderland, about west of Arnhem.
The oldest part of Oosterbeek is the Benedendorp (Lower Village), on the northern bank o ...
,
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, from 29 to 31 May 1954.
[''Atlas Obscura'',]
Hotel de Bilderberg
The hotel gave its name both to the group and to the "Bilderbergers" who participate in its activities. The hotel is situated in a quiet location, approximately 7 km west of the city of
Arnhem
Arnhem ( or ; german: Arnheim; South Guelderish: ''Èrnem'') is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands about 55 km south east of Utrecht. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located on both banks of ...
.
[Gijswijt, Thomas, W.,
]
Informal Alliance: The Bilderberg Group and Transatlantic Relations during the Cold War, 1952–1968
' (2018), Routledge. "The Hotel de Bilderberg was a medium-sized family-run hotel, chosen mainly for its quiet and remote location in the forests of the eastern Netherlands. It was not a particularly fancy hotel...but security was relatively easy to maintain since there was only one access road." It is owned and operated by the Bilderberg hotel chain, which runs 12 hotels and an event location in the Netherlands and one hotel in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. At the time of the 1954 conference, it was a medium-sized family-run hotel.
The conference was initiated by several people, including
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
politician-in-exile
Józef Retinger
Józef Hieronim Retinger (Kraków, 17 April 1888 12 June 1960, London; World War II noms de guerre ''Salamandra'', "Salamander", and ''Brzoza'', "Birch Tree") was a Polish scholar, international political activist with access to some of the l ...
who, concerned about the growth of
anti-Americanism
Anti-Americanism (also called anti-American sentiment) is prejudice, fear, or hatred of the United States, its government, its foreign policy, or Americans in general.
Political scientist Brendon O'Connor at the United States Studies Centr ...
in Western Europe, proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting
Atlanticism
Atlanticism, also known as Transatlanticism, is the belief in or support for a close relationship between the peoples and governments in Northern America (the United States and Canada) and those in Europe (the countries of the European Union, the ...
—better understanding between the cultures of the United States and
Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
to foster cooperation on political, economic, and defense issues.
Retinger approached
Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. ...
who agreed to promote the idea, together with former
Belgian prime minister
german: Premierminister von Belgien
, insignia = State Coat of Arms of Belgium.svg
, insigniasize = 100px
, insigniacaption = Coat of arms
, insigniaalt =
, flag = Government ...
Paul van Zeeland
Paul Guillaume, Viscount van Zeeland (11 November 1893 – 22 September 1973) was a Belgian lawyer, economist, Catholic politician, and statesman born in Soignies.
Van Zeeland was a professor of law and later director of the Institute of Econ ...
, and the then head of
Unilever
Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy drink, t ...
,
Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted
Walter Bedell Smith
General Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith (5 October 1895 – 9 August 1961) was a senior officer of the United States Army who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff at Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) during the Tunisia Campaign ...
, the then head of the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
, who asked
Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
adviser
Charles Douglas Jackson
General Charles Douglas (C. D.) Jackson (March 16, 1902 – September 18, 1964) was a United States government propagandist and senior executive of Time Inc. As an expert on psychological warfare he served in the Office of Strategic Services in W ...
to deal with the suggestion.
The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one of each to represent "conservative" and "liberal" points of view.
Fifty delegates from 11 countries in Western Europe attended the first conference, along with 11 Americans.
The success of the meeting led the organizers to arrange an annual conference. A permanent steering committee was established with Retinger appointed as permanent secretary. As well as organizing the conference, the steering committee also maintained a register of attendee names and contact details with the aim of creating an informal network of individuals who could call upon one another in a private capacity.
Conferences were held in France, Germany, and
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark
...
over the following three years. In 1957, the first U.S. conference was held on
St. Simons Island, Georgia, with $30,000 from the
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...
. The foundation also supplied funding for the 1959 and 1963 conferences.
Participants
The participants are between 120 and 150 people, including
political leaders,
experts
An expert is somebody who has a broad and deep understanding and competence in terms of knowledge, skill and experience through practice and education in a particular field. Informally, an expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable so ...
from
industry
Industry may refer to:
Economics
* Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity
* Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery
* The wider industrial sector ...
,
finance
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...
,
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
and the
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...
.
About two thirds of the participants come from Europe and the rest from North America; one third from
politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
and
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
and the rest from other fields.
Historically, attendee lists have been weighted toward bankers, politicians, directors of large businesses
and board members from large publicly traded corporations, including Wallenberg-owned conglomerate holding company
Investor AB
Investor AB is a Swedish investment and ''de facto'' conglomerate holding company. It was founded in 1916 and is still controlled by the Wallenberg family through their Foundation Asset Management company FAM. The company owns a controlling st ...
and other Wallenberg-owned multinationals such as
Ericsson
(lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...
and
ABB
ABB Ltd. is a Swedish- Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company was formed in 1988 when Sweden's Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (ASEA) and Switzerland's Brown, Boveri & Cie merged to crea ...
,
IBM,
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...
,
Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...
,
Nokia
Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...
and
Daimler.
Heads of state, including former
King
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
Juan Carlos I of Spain
Juan Carlos I (;,
* ca, Joan Carles I,
* gl, Xoán Carlos I, Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias, born 5 January 1938) is a member of the Spanish royal family who reigned as King of Spain from 22 Nov ...
and former
Queen
Queen or QUEEN may refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom
** List of queens regnant
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
Beatrix of the Netherlands
Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013.
Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husband ...
, have attended meetings.
A source connected to the group told ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' in 2013 that other individuals, whose names are not publicly issued, sometimes turn up "just for the day" at the group's meetings.
The banker and industrialist
Marcus Wallenberg Jr. was a member of the steering committee and attended the meeting twenty-two times from the 1950s to 1981, a year prior to his death. His grandson
Marcus Wallenberg has attended it eight times and his other grandson,
Jacob Wallenberg
Jacob Wallenberg (born 13 January 1956) is a Swedish banker and industrialist, currently serving as a board member for multiple companies. ''The Guardian'' has once quoted him as the prince in Sweden's royal family of finance.
Biography
Earl ...
, seventeen times.
Meetings
Activities and goals
The group's original goal of promoting
Atlanticism
Atlanticism, also known as Transatlanticism, is the belief in or support for a close relationship between the peoples and governments in Northern America (the United States and Canada) and those in Europe (the countries of the European Union, the ...
, of strengthening U.S.-European relations and preventing another world war has grown; according to Andrew Kakabadse, the Bilderberg Group's theme is to "bolster a consensus around
free-market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe".
In 2001,
Denis Healey
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey, (30 August 1917 – 3 October 2015) was a British Labour Party (UK), Labour politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 and as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970; he ...
, a Bilderberg group founder and a steering committee member for 30 years, said, "To say we were striving for a
one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."
According to the web page of the group, the meetings are conducted under the
Chatham House Rule
Under the Chatham House Rule, anyone who comes to a meeting is free to use information from the discussion, but is not allowed to reveal who made any particular comment. It is designed to increase openness of discussion. The rule is a system for h ...
, allowing the participants to use any information they gained during the meeting, but not to disclose the names of the speakers or any other participants. According to former chairman
Étienne Davignon
Étienne, Count Davignon (born 4 October 1932 in Budapest, Hungary) is a Belgian politician, businessman, and former vice-president of the European Commission.
Career
After receiving a Doctorate of Law from the Catholic University of Louvain, ...
in 2011, a major attraction of Bilderberg group meetings is that they provide an opportunity for participants to speak and debate candidly and to find out what major figures really think, without the risk of off-the-cuff comments becoming fodder for controversy in the media.
A 2008 press release from the "American Friends of Bilderberg" stated that "Bilderberg's only activity is its annual Conference and that at the meetings, no resolutions were proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued."
However, in November 2009, the group hosted a dinner meeting at the
Château of Val-Duchesse
The Château of Val-Duchesse (french: Château de Val-Duchesse, nl, Kasteel van Hertoginnedal) is a mansion and estate situated in the municipality of Auderghem in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. The château, which occupies the site of ...
in Brussels outside its annual conference to promote the candidacy of
Herman Van Rompuy
Herman Achille, Count Van Rompuy (; born 31 October 1947) is a Belgian politician, who served as the prime minister of Belgium from 2008 to 2009 and then as the first permanent president of the European Council from 2009 to 2014.
A politicia ...
for
President of the European Council
The president of the European Council is the person presiding over and driving forward the work of the European Council on the world stage. This institution comprises the college of heads of state or government of EU member states as well as t ...
.
The Bilderberg meetings are also unofficially called the "Bilderberg Group", "Bilderberg conference" or "Bilderberg Club".
Organizational structure
Meetings are organized by a steering committee with two members from each of approximately 18 nations.
Official posts include a chairman and an Honorary Secretary General.
The group's rules do not contain a membership category but former participants receive the annual conference reports. The only category that exists is "member of the steering committee". Besides the committee, there is a separate advisory group with overlapping membership.
[Entry for ]Conrad Black
Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour (born 25 August 1944), is a Canadian-born British former newspaper publisher, businessman, and writer.
His father was businessman George Montegu Black II, who had significant holdings in Canadi ...
,
Dutch economist
Ernst van der Beugel
Ernst van der Beugel (;In isolation, ''van'' is pronounced . 2 February 1918, Amsterdam – 29 September 2004, The Hague) was a Dutch economist, businessman, diplomat, and politician of the Labour Party.
Education
Van der Beugel graduated in ...
became permanent secretary in 1960, upon Retinger's death. Prince Bernhard continued to serve as the meeting's chairman until 1976, the year of his involvement in the
Lockheed affair. The position of Honorary American Secretary General has been held successively by
Joseph E. Johnson of the
Carnegie Endowment
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington D.C. with operations in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East as well as the United States. Founded in ...
;
William Bundy
William Putnam Bundy (September 24, 1917 – October 6, 2000) was an American attorney and intelligence expert, an analyst with the CIA. Bundy served as a foreign affairs advisor to both presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He ha ...
of
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
;
Theodore L. Eliot Jr., former
U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan
The United States ambassador to Afghanistan is the official diplomatic representative of the United States to Afghanistan. In the wake of the 2021 fall of Kabul to the Taliban, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul transferred operations to Doha, Qatar. S ...
; and
Casimir A. Yost of
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...
's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
According to James A. Bill, the "steering committee usually met twice a year to plan programs and to discuss the participant list".
In 2002, in ''
Them: Adventures with Extremists'', author
Jon Ronson
Jon Ronson (born 10 May 1967) is a British-American journalist, author, and filmmaker whose works include '' Them: Adventures with Extremists'' (2001), ''The Men Who Stare at Goats'' (2004), and ''The Psychopath Test'' (2011). He has been desc ...
wrote that the group has a small central office in Holland which each year decides what country will host the forthcoming meeting. The host country then has to book an entire hotel for four days, plus arrange catering, transport and security. To fund this, the host solicits donations from sympathetic corporations such as
Barclays
Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services.
Barclays traces ...
,
Fiat Automobiles
Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary ...
,
GlaxoSmithKline
GSK plc, formerly GlaxoSmithKline plc, is a British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with global headquarters in London, England. Established in 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. GSK is the ten ...
,
Heinz
The H. J. Heinz Company is an American food processing company headquartered at One PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Henry J. Heinz in 1869. Heinz manufactures thousands of food products in plants on six conti ...
,
Nokia
Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...
and
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...
.
Joshua Silber as President
Chairmen of the Steering Committee
Criticism
There have been long standing concerns about
lobbying
In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agency, regulatory agencie ...
, since senior policymakers meet with corporate lobbyists, and in the case of the 2015 meeting even with senior figures at
Transparency International
Transparency International e.V. (TI) is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank. Based in Berlin, its nonprofit and non-governmental purpose is to take action to combat global corruption with civil ...
.
Partly because of its working methods to ensure strict privacy and secrecy, the Bilderberg Group has been criticised for its lack of transparency and accountability.
Ian Richardson sees Bilderberg as the transnational
power elite, "an integral, and to some extent critical, part of the existing system of
global governance
Global governance refers to institutions that coordinate the behavior of transnational actors, facilitate cooperation, resolve disputes, and alleviate collective action problems. Global governance broadly entails making, monitoring, and enfor ...
", that is "not acting in the interests of the whole".
An article in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' in June 2017 criticized the world view expressed in an agenda published by the Bilderberg group.
Conspiracy theories
The undisclosed nature of the proceedings has given rise to several
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
*
*
* The term has a nega ...
,
which have been popular at both extremes of the
political spectrum
A political spectrum is a system to characterize and classify different political positions in relation to one another. These positions sit upon one or more geometric axes that represent independent political dimensions. The expressions politi ...
, although there is disagreement about the exact nature of the group's intentions. Some on the left accuse the Bilderberg group of conspiring to impose capitalist domination,
while some on the right have accused the group of conspiring to impose a
world government
World government is the concept of a single political authority with jurisdiction over all humanity. It is conceived in a variety of forms, from tyrannical to democratic, which reflects its wide array of proponents and detractors.
A world gove ...
and
planned economy
A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, part ...
.
In 2005, Davignon discussed accusations of the group striving for a one-world government with the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
: "It is unavoidable and it doesn't matter. There will always be people who believe in conspiracies but things happen in a much more incoherent fashion. ... When people say this is a secret government of the world I say that if we were a secret government of the world we should be bloody ashamed of ourselves."
conspiracy theories about the Bilderberg group date back to as early as 1964 and can be found in
was secretly controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberg group, whose
's 2006 book ''The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club'', which, as quoted by Castro, describes "sinister cliques and the Bilderberg lobbyists" manipulating the public "to install a world government that knows no borders and is not accountable to anyone but its own self."
Proponents of Bilderberg conspiracy theories in the United States include individuals and groups such as the
''. Non-American proponents include Lithuanian writer
.