THE AMERICAN RULING CLASS is a morality tale set to music about two Yale students who seek their opportunities after graduation. Lewis Lapham, the renowned essayist, author and longtime Harper+¯-+-+s Magazine editor, conducts them through the corridors of power +¯-+-+ Pentagon press briefings, the World Economic Forum, philanthropic foundations, Washington law firms, banks, the Council on Foreign Relations and New York society dinners. As they make their way, the real-life luminaries they meet become characters in a dramatic story about power, its responsibilities and abuses. The subject is our country+¯-+-+s most taboo topic: class, power and privilege in our nominally democratic republic.