"The Great Conspiracy, we can be (almost) certain, does not exist; there is no Table (neither round nor of any other geometric shape) around which Unknown Superiors sit. But there are plenty of plans and programmes formulated to serve the particular interests of lobbies and corporations by individuals and groups who count outside and above internal and international legality, however much the mass media try to prevent their existence and activities from becoming known. [...] In other words, one might ask what is the relationship between the actual power held and exercised today by the government of the United States of America and the process of globalisation. But in these terms, the question is poorly posed. The real and fundamental question is another: what are the real forces that support, partly control and partly directly constitute the government of the United States of America? Whose sovereign power does it represent, whose sovereign will does it execute, beyond the legal forms designed to legitimise it? Does it hold “imperial” power? Or is there, behind it, as behind other forces currently “present” in the world, an “invisible empire” that is in fact irresponsible – in the etymological sense of the term: that is, it is not accountable, it does not have to answer for its actions because no one is in a position to call it to account – before its subjects, who do not even know (or, at least, not clearly) that they are such?"