Much has been made of the fact that Bilderberg's first chairman Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands was a member of the Nazi Party in the early 1930s, but it is arguably his role in the early 1940s, when he fled the Nazis to Britain, that is of most significance for Bilderberg. The early meetings drew on wartime links, established only a decade before between British and American intelligence, European Governments-in-exile, and resistance movements on the continent.

The emergence of the Cold War helped to perpetuate these networks and perhaps also the tradition of secrecy in which they operated. Early British delegates to Bilderberg such as Colin Gubbins and Hugh Gaitskell had close links to wartime covert action.

Scholars of the cold war are perhaps the best guide through the maze of claims and counter-claims about Bilderberg. For intelligence historian Christopher Aldrich, Bilderberg was the product of the same small group of Western officials who promoted European federalism, a project that was ironically sustained by the CIA. 'Quite simply', argues Aldrich, 'the most enthusiastic federalist power in post-war Europe was the United States.' (The Hidden Hand, 2002, p.344)

On the social significance of networks like Bilderberg, Dutch scholar Kees van der Pijl writes:

They function not as single-minded conspiracies, but as flexible, open structures in which the conflicting lines of development can be identified and synthesised. Ruling class strategists rely on these networks to elaborate a hegemonic strategy aimed at winning over intermediate strata; they can thus establish a bloc of forces committed to a comprehensive, broadly accepted concept of control. This presumes a keen appreciation of the real balance of forces, both in the geopolitical arena and in class terms. Disagreement and discussion are therefore ultimately as vital as a measure of compromise and consensus. (Global Rivalries from the Cold War to Iraq, 2006, pp.68-69).

The British historian Hugh Wilford writes in response:

One does not have to accept all the Marxist assumptions inherent in the Dutch scholar's analysis to agree that there were striking correspondences between the Group and earlier attempts to construct a bourgeois transnational network or 'imagined community' through such élitist, secretive, male-only organisations as the Freemasons or the Rhodes/Milner 'Round Table'. That said, there is considerable explanatory force in his argument that the early Cold War witnessed the emergence of a new 'Atlantic ruling class' whose power was based on the liberal corporate order of New Deal America but which also incorporated fractions of European élites who shared its modernising internationalist outlook. (The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? 2003, pp.254-255).

Certainly, the agenda of recent meetings show a keen appreciation for the "real balance of forces" reflected in events such as the Arab Spring and anti-Austerity protests in Europe. They also demonstrate a strong interest in new technology, with 'Social Networks: Connectivity and Security Issues' on the agenda in 2011, 'cyber security' in 2012, and 'Cyber warfare and the proliferation of asymmetric threats' due to be discussed this week.

These discussions are intriguing because current and former security officials rub shoulders with tech executives like Eric Schmidt of Google. One wonders how much past Bilderberg discussions have shaped Google's foray into counter-radicalisation with its think tank Google Ideas.

Facebook investor Peter Thiel is also a regular at Bilderberg. One of Thiel's investments, the data analysis company, Palantir Technologies, is also represented by this year CEO Alex Karp at Bilderberg. Palantir is controversial for its work developing data-mining technology for US intelligence agencies, but also because it has been implicated in cyber-espionage

It is tempting to see the germ of the database state in such contacts, which are the more troubling because of the strong neoconservative presence at Bilderberg, despite its centrist image, through organisations like the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies and the American Enterprise Institute, represented once again this year by Richard Perle.

The privileged access offered by Bilderberg offers chosen industrialists the opportunity to shape debates in a number of areas. The debate 'Online education: promise and impacts', offers a golden opportunity to Andrew Y. Ng, CEO of Coursera, which specialises in just this area.

The presence of creative commons activist Lawrence Lessig is perhaps the only potential counterweight to a prevalent bias in favour of the commodification of new technology.

Particularly troubling is the strong representation of the pharmaceutical industry and companies with related investments, alongside politicians with proven clout in relation to healthcare, such as Shirley Williams, the Lib Dem peer who played a key part in persuading her party to back a Health Social care Act strengthening the role of the private sector.

We still don't know what is actually discussed at Bilderberg, but we know more than we did, and that is itself a concession by elite networked power of the 1950s to the mass networked power of the 21st century. We know enough perhaps to begin to question, and to contest, the Bilderberg agenda.