Abstract
The issue of transnational class formation has figured centrally in recent debates on globalization. These debates revolve around the question of whether or not new patterns of cross-border trade and investment have established global circuits of capital out of which a transnational capitalist class has emerged. This paper takes up the notion of transnational class formation at the point of corporate directorship interlocks. Using Canada as a case study, it maps the changing network of directorship interlocks between leading firms in Canada and the world economy. In particular, the paper examines the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) in the Canadian corporate network; the resilience of a national corporate community; and new patterns of cross-border interlocking amongst transnational firms. Through this empirical mapping, the paper finds a definite link between investment and interlocking shaping the social space of the global corporate elite. Corporations with a transnational base of accumulation tend to participate in transnational interlocking. While national corporate communities have not been transcended, transnational firms increasingly predominate within them, articulating national with transnational elite segments. This new network of firms reconstitutes the corporate power bloc and forms a nascent transnational capitalist class.
Highlights
The issue of transnational class formation has figured centrally in recent debates on globalization and the world economy
For Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000), globalization has created a new form of Empire, a world economy so interconnected that it overcomes rivalries between states and national blocs of capital: “What used to be conflict or competition among several imperialist powers has in important respects been replaced by the idea of a single power that overdetermines them all, structures them in a unitary way, and treats them under one common notion of right that is decidedly postcolonial and postimperialist” (2000: 9)
We find a growing polarization within the C250, marked by the absolute decline and relative stagnation of nationally bound firms, and the rapid growth and international expansion of transnational corporations (TNCs) and near-TNCs
Summary
The issue of transnational class formation has figured centrally in recent debates on globalization and the world economy These debates revolve around the question of whether or not new patterns of cross-border trade and investment have established global circuits of capital out of which a transnational capitalist class has emerged. Jerry Harris (2005: 329) argues that, “[t]he major dialectic in the present period is the contradiction between the descending form of capitalism organized around the nation-state system and an arising form of accumulation organized in the transnational world order.”. For this reason, Stephen Gill (2003: 59) views globalization as the political project of a “transnational historic bloc.”. Jerry Harris (2005: 329) argues that, “[t]he major dialectic in the present period is the contradiction between the descending form of capitalism organized around the nation-state system and an arising form of accumulation organized in the transnational world order.” For this reason, Stephen Gill (2003: 59) views globalization as the political project of a “transnational historic bloc.” According to Leslie Sklair (2001), it is leading “corporate executives, globalizing bureaucrats and politicians, globalizing professionals, and consumerist elites,” who produce and represent this new class agency
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