Is Transnational Capitalism in the Process of Emerging?

Over the last 30 years the concept of the globalisation of capitalism has been the focus of great debate. For those, like Wallerstein, Arrighi, Franck and me, who have long argued that historical capitalism has always been globalised, at each stage of its development the sole question to ask is whether the latest stage of glo­balisation presents us with important new characteristics that constitute a qualita­tive change in the nature of capitalism.¹

A resounding ‘yes’ can be heard from the majority of economists and conven­tional political scientists, for whom the relevance of the nation-state, which would have characterised the historical capitalism of the past, is gradually being dimin­ished by the rapid development of ‘transnationalisation’.

Far more interesting are the responses of those economists who are critical of capitalism. They too give a positive response to the question. However, by bas­ing their arguments on fact they manage to steer away from detailed conclusions regarding the nature of the transformation of capitalism.

To my knowledge, since 1970 Stephen Hymer is the first person to have for­mulated this positive response (to a question which was far less frequently asked at that time) by stating that ‘an internationalist capitalist class is emerging whose interests lie in the world economy’ (William K. Carroll: ‘The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class?, Zed, 2010: 2).

Kees Van Der Pijl (‘The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class’, 1984) has always integrated his analysis of transformations within the global economic system with those of the wider global political economy, putting all of his emphasis on

¹ This text was translated from the French by Mairi Lockwood first published by Pambazuka News, 23 March 2011 (website).

S. Amin, Samir Amin, SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice 16, 107

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-01116-5_11, © The Author(s) 2014 the political dimension, as should be expected. He was amongst the first to have proclaimed (and rightly so, in my opinion) that the ‘European project’ was actu­ally born in Washington; ‘European unification was a product of US intervention’ (Carroll 2010: 155).

However, more recent steps towards acknowledging the emergence of an ‘Atlantic trans-national capitalism’ that comprises the United States and north­west Europe have been proposed by Leslie Sklair (The Transnational Capitalist Class, Blackwell, 2001), W.I. Robinson (A Theory of Global Capitalism, John Hopkins, Baltimore, 2004) and Carroll 2010.

Robinson has gone the furthest in terms of defining the qualitative transforma­tion of capitalism by defining the new bourgeoisie as the “group that owns leading worldwide means of production” (Carroll 2010: 3).

Leslie Sklair defines the new transnational capitalism by combining the dif­ferent dimensions of his latest investigation into one reality. The global lead­ing class is therefore made up of the following: ‘corporate executives’; market majority-holders and the politicians at their disposal (‘globalizing bureaucrats and politicians’); the technocrats also at their disposal (‘globalising profession­als’); and even the most privileged classes who benefit from globalisation (‘con­sumerist elites’). The existence of such an association, for Sklair, is hardly worth mentioning. Yet, can we assume that this constitutes a single global class? Or is it a group of associated classes that delineate a globally dominant historic bloc (a la Gramsci)? Or could it be a group of classes (of differing nationalities amongst other things) who are conscious of their shared interests yet are still in competition with each other? The latter response is that of Pijl and it is a view that I share, the reasons for which I will come to later.

The most recent work on the question of the globalisation of capitalism that of Carroll (2010), is an empirical study of titanic proportions. Carroll has created an indicator for measuring the interpenetration of capital at both national and transna­tional levels, in Europe, the North Atlantic and worldwide.

I don’t take issue with the more immediate conclusions that Carroll reaches in this investigation, but I will return later to his less immediate conclusions of which I am not convinced. Carroll’s immediate conclusions are as follows:

1. Transnational interpenetration has not diminished the strength of national sys­tems; ‘the transnationalisation of the corporate network has not fragmented national corporate networks’ (p. 24), or a ‘transnational network is a kind of superstructure that rests upon rather resilient national bases’ (p. 34).

2. Links between corporations are strengthened, with this initially taking place at the national level (even in Europe). Germany has the most well-integrated national sys­tem in comparison with other European countries; following that is north-western Europe (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and Great Britain, who altogether occupy a single position within this network of links); and finally the Atlantic (made up of Europe as set out above, and the United States and Canada). In contrast however, Japan-Europe and Japan-North America links are somewhat stunted. Worse still are the links between the central Atlantic on one side and the rest of the world on the other side (including developing countries, China and others).

3. The European network excludes practically the whole of eastern Europe and the Balkans; and is entirely centred upon the advanced capitalist countries of occidental Europe.

4.

5. Western European integration (not simply European, as eastern and southern European countries are typically excluded) is well ahead in comparison with other models of transnational integration.

From his observations, Carroll arrives at two major conclusions:

1. The western European construction is fully working. I will return to this point, which has been formulated far too hastily in my opinion, and risks instilling an erroneous perspective on the situation.

2. National foundations are still important. Carroll illustrates his conclusion using the following points: ‘the notion that the elite is becoming disembodied from national moorings and repositioned in a supra national space underestimates the persistence of national and regional attachments’ (p. 129).

I feel that the term ‘underestimates’ is in itself too ambiguous to accurately reflect the reality of the connection between the national and the transnational in both occidental Europe and in the Atlantic.

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