Database visualization is an important area of interactive design. "They Rule" is an excellent example of this kind of project. It attempts to demonstrate the relationships between some of America's most powerful corporate executives by visually showing you which companies they are involved with, and how these companies might gain from such a relationship.

America is a class divided society. There is no greater contradiction in our society than the fact that the majority of the people who do the work are not the ones who reap the benefit. In 1998 the top 1 percent of the population owned 38 percent of the wealth, the top 5 percent owned over 60 percent (source: www.inequality.org/fatcsfr.html). That was the situation in "the boom years". This inequality might be overlooked as long as the people at the bottom end of the scale have what they need. They don't. According to the „CIA World Fact Book" 12.5 percent of Americans live below the poverty line. There is enough to go round, we just have a system that doesn't let it flow. We have a system, which perpetuates the accumulation of wealth amongst a very small section of the population, known in socialist terms as the ruling class.
„They Rule“ is an attempt to show some of the internal relations of the ruling class. Specifically it maps the interlocking directories of the Fortune 100 companies in 2001. The board members of these companies often sit on more than one of the „Fortune“ 100 boards and often many other boards beyond that. „They Rule“ has a database of these companies and their board members, and has a graphic interface which allows a visitor to the site to browse through the connections.
The visitor can select one of the 100 companies and move an icon of its boardroom table onto the screen. A click on a plus sign above the table will reveal a menu of options, including one to reveal the companies´ board of directors. The directors expand from the table as little people icons, connected back to the table with corporate grey lines. Some of the directors are more rotund than others; their size indicates the number of Fortune 100 boards they sit on. Clicking on their briefcases provides an option to expand their connections and reveal the other boards they sit on, the boardroom tables of those other companies appear around them, connected with more grey lines. After a few interactions of this the stage is cluttered with a maze of connections.
In 2001 more than 90% of the Fortune 100 companies shared board members with at least one other Fortune 100 company. This is not a completely surprising or coveted fact. When selecting board members for a profitable corporation, birthright may be one factor, but experience is another. It makes sense from a corporation's point of view to fill their boards with people who are familiar with directing powerful companies. Indeed the directors are often proud of their many different corporate seats. That it should not be surprising does not make it any less fascinating, intriguing and for many, including myself, disgusting.
In 1914 the Clayton Act was passed into US law. A person is in violation of section 8 of that act if they "serve as either a director or officer of two corporations at the same time." There are a number of exceptions and loopholes, which make the act less effective and the penalties are negligible. A director found to be in breach of this clause would not face imprisonment or any criminal penalties. They would invite a FTC investigation for Price Fixing or other forms of corporate collusion and non-competitive activities.
When browsing through the multitude of interlocks in „They Rule“ it is easy to let your imagination run wild about the types of collusion that might occur on these boards. It is notoriously difficult to prove any of these activities, and those with the power to do so, probably don't have it in their interests to pursue it. I didn't want „They Rule“ to foster or hinder conspiracy theories, rather I wanted it to show that we have a system which encourages conspiracy. The connections in „They Rule“ are only a few of the connections of one small section of the ruling class. Some of the connections may not be as important as they appear to be in the site and some may be much more important than others. A director of one company may sit on another board with a director of the board of another company and not a colluding word might be uttered. However, two separate directors of the competing corporations may belong to the same Golf course, and perhaps it is on the putting Green that the prices are fixed, the collusions are made.
Speculation is to be encouraged, but I also wanted „They Rule“ to provide a starting point for getting some facts. „They Rule“ graphically reveals this one surface reality of an interconnected ruling class, but it also encourages visitors to dig deeper. It is easy to run a search on companies and individuals straight from the site. It is not uncommon for the first result in an internet search engine query on a board member to come up with their name in connection with a government committee or advisory board or even to discover that they were in Government for a time. The people in „They Rule“ include an ex-president, an ex- Secretary of the Treasury, and many ex-members of Congress. The ongoing Enron scandal, which sparked much activity on the site, revealed just how closely tied the State is to the corporate world. As Marx put it, the state is "the executive committee of the ruling class." Hopefully „They Rule“ can help us confirm (or deny) this.
Mapping significant relationships with „They Rule“ can be tricky. It has been suggested that it should include tools that use mathematical algorithms to arrange the boards and directors that are placed on the screen in ways that reveal structural importance in the network. I may still add such tools to the project, however, as stated above I am not convinced that all of these connections are even in social significance. A mathematical formula will not be able to evaluate all aspects of that inequality - although it may point out potential areas for further investigation. „They Rule“ uses a social filtering system. Visitors to the site can arrange and annotate the connections they find, hiding some, stressing others and adding URLs to add to the qualitative information (and misinformation!) on the site. One of the easiest ways to browse the site is to view the maps that other visitors to the site have created. Some of the most interesting and startling connections to the site have been produced by people who have arranged the material in ways that no mathematical algorithm could have.
„They Rule“ is not an authority on the ruling class, but it does expose something of their incestuous existence. Perhaps it will inspire people to try and find out how it is that such a small percentage of the world controls so much, and how this situation can be described as a democracy.
There is much to do to make this world a safer place, and I trust that most of us would like to get on with it. We can't do it as individuals, we must come together and fight for our collective interests which in my opinion run counter to those of the ruling few. I hope that some day we will have a world in which we can all genuinely exclaim "We Rule!"