If you use a newstyle class, e.g. class A(object), then you can get the superclass with cls.__base__. You could also use super(cls,cls), although note that it returns a <super> object that isn't exactly the same thing as a class -- but good enough for just accessing attributes.
Make sure to check that your superclass isn't <object>, otherwise it'll complain about <object> not having a foo attribute. __base__ is probably easier for this purpose. Also be careful with multiple inheritance. No such thing as __super though. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list