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Review of International
Political Economy
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Social movements for

global capitalism: the
transnational capitalist
class in action
Leslie Sklair
Published online: 08 Feb 2011.

To cite this article: Leslie Sklair (1997) Social movements for

global capitalism: the transnational capitalist class in action,
Review of International Political Economy, 4:3, 514-538, DOI:
10.1080/096922997347733

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 Review of International Political Economy 4:3 Autumn 1997: 514–538
1111
2
3
4
5 Social movements for global
6
7 capitalism: the transnational capitalist
8 class in action
9
1110 Leslie Sklair
11
London School of Economics and Poilitical Science
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12
13
14 A BS T R A C T
15
16 The thesis that ‘Capitalism does not just happen’ is argued with reference
to Gramsci, hegemony and the critique of state centrism. This involves a
17
critique of the assumption that ruling classes rule effortlessly, and raises
18
the issue: Does globalization increase the pressures on ruling classes to
19 deliver? Global system theory is outlined in terms of transnational
1120 practices in the economic, political, and culture and ideology spheres
21 and the characteristic institutional forms of these, the transnational
22 corporation, transnational capitalist class and the culture-ideology of
23 consumerism. The transnational capitalist class is organized in four over-
24 lapping fractions: TNC executives, globalizing bureaucrats, politicians and
25 professionals, consumerist elites (merchants and media). Social movements
26 for global capitalism and elite social movement organizations (ESMOs) are
27 analysed. Each of the four fractions of the TCC has its own distinctive
organizations, some of which take on social movement-like characteristics.
28
29
1130
K E Y WO R D S
31
32 Globalization; capitalism; class; Gramsci; social movements; TNC.
33
34
35
I C A PI TA LI SM D O ES NO T J U S T HA PP EN
36
37 The focus of social movement research, old and new, has always and
38 quite properly been on anti-establishment, deviant and revolutionary
39 movements of various types. The aim of this article is to help redress
1140 the balance and to show how global capitalism, which I take to be the
41 single most important (though not, of course, the only) global force,
42 is, in many respects, vulnerable. It is a social system that has to
43 struggle to create and reproduce its hegemonic order globally, and to
1144 do this large numbers of local, national, international and global
Folio © 1997 Routledge 0969–2290
 GLOBAL C APITALISM A ND THE TCC

1111 organizations have been established, some of which engage in practices

2 that clearly parallel the organizational forms and actions of what are
3 conventionally called ‘new social movements’.
4 The theoretical-historical foundations of this argument and line
5 of research originate in Gramsci’s attempt to construct a theory of
6 hegemony and ideological state apparatuses (Gramsci, 1971). Much
7 of the voluminous Prison Notebooks written from 1929 to 1935 can be
8 read as a continuous critique of the assumption, not difŽcult to gather
9 from the Marx–Engels classics, that ruling classes generally rule effort-
11110 lessly until revolutionary upsurges drive them from power and make
11 everything anew. As many scholars inspired by, sympathetic with and
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12 hostile to marxism have pointed out, the general impression of the marxist
13 classics is of a rather deterministic sociology, a theory in which ‘men
14 make history’ but not in circumstances of their own choosing, where
15 the emphasis is on the latter rather than the former.
16 It is no accident that Gramsci is associated both with a more ‘cultural’,
17 less deterministic interpretation of marxism and with the concept of
18 hegemony, for they do connect. Gramsci made the connection through
19 the role of the intellectuals in the creation and sustenance of hegemonic
11120 forms for the ruling class. He argues:
21
The hegemony of a directive centre over the intellectuals asserts
22
itself by two principal routes: 1. a general conception of life, a
23
philosophy . . . which offers to its adherents an intellectual ‘dignity’
24
providing a principle of differentiation from the old ideologies
25
which dominated by coercion, and an element of struggle against
26
them; 2. a scholastic programme, an educative principle and
27
original pedagogy which interests that fraction of the intellectuals
28
which is the most homogenous and the most numerous (the
29
teachers, from the primary teachers to the university pro-
11130
fessors), and gives them an activity of their own in the technical
31
Želd.
32
(Gramsci, 1971: 103–4; written in 1934)
33
34 While much of this still seems quite valid to me, it suggests too much
35 of a one-way process, the ‘directive centre’ asserting its hegemony over
36 the intellectuals. The reality today is that it is certainly a dialectical
37 process where distinct groups of intellectuals, inspired by the promise
38 or actual achievements of global capitalism, articulate what they perceive
39 to be its essential purposes and strategies, often with support and
11140 encouragement from the corporate elites and their friends in govern-
41 ment and other spheres, particularly the media. In an outstanding
42 historical study of this process, which remains outstanding despite its
43 failure to theorize the process at all, Cockett (1995)1 shows how about
11144 Žfty intellectuals of various types carried out an anti-Keynesian neo-
Folio 515
 ARTICLES

1111 liberal counter-revolution from the 1930s to the eventual triumphs of

2 Thatcher–Reaganism in the 1980s.
3 The great virtue of Cockett’s study is that he shows clearly and in
4 convincing detail how the neoliberal anti-Keynesian revolution begun
5 by Hayek and others in the 1930s was kept alive by public and private
6 meetings, conferences, academic and more popular publications,
7 lobbying of various types, feeding the media, assiduous contacts with
8 the politically powerful (or soon to be powerful) and, with the excep-
9 tion of mass demonstrations, all the trappings that are the daily fare of
1110 social movements research. So this is not an idealist account of social
11 change in which the power of ideas eventually turns the tide but,
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12 on the contrary, a much more subtle argument in which the bearers of

13 powerful ideas which have few powerful adherents work away until
14 the material forces begin to change in their direction (the crises of
15 capitalism and state power in the 1970s feeding the widespread dis-
16 illusionment with Keynesian and welfare state solutions to these crises
17 and the legitimation crisis in general).
18 Enter Gramsci, again. ‘A “crisis of authority” is spoken of: this is
19 precisely the crisis of hegemony, or general crisis of the state’ (1971:
1120 210). Whereas Gramsci (writing in the 1930s from a fascist prison) saw
21 the latest ‘crisis of hegemony’ resulting from the First World War and
22 the communist advances since then and would undoubtedly have seen
23 the next ‘crisis of hegemony’ for international capitalism resulting from
24 the Second World War, it is not so clear what the position is today.
25 Theories of capitalist crisis (Žscal crisis of the state, crisis of welfare,
26 crisis of deindustrialization, the environmental crisis are just a few of
27 the contenders) have been articulated from all sides. These have gener-
28 ally been seen as crises which need global as well as national solutions
29 (Ross and Trachte, 1990). My argument is that the global capitalist
1130 project is gaining ground as the emerging solution to all these crises
31 (Sklair, 1995) and, as beŽts a hegemonic crisis of the Žrst order, the
32 solution is a new conception of global hegemony, ‘in other words, the
33 possibility and necessity of creating a new culture’ (Gramsci, 1971: 276;
34 written in 1930). But while Gramsci was thinking of a new socialist
35 order, for the 1990s this raises the prospect of what Ranney (1994) terms
36 an ‘emerging supranational corporate agenda’.
37 The devastation of the 1970s oil shocks, the subsequent debt crises,
38 corporate restructuring and ‘downsizing’ (the race to the bottom) and
39 the apparent inability of politicians to deal with these problems in
1140 any other way than by short-term palliatives, suggest that the local
41 effects of globalization increase the pressures on capitalist corporations,
42 state apparatuses, politicians and professionals and cultural-ideological
43 elites, what I shall go on to deŽne as the transnational capitalist class,
1144 to deliver. If this is true, and I shall argue that it has been increasingly
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 GLOBAL C APITALISM A ND THE TCC

1111 the case since the ‘prosperous’ 1950s and 1960s, then what I describe as
2 the ‘siege mentality of global capitalism’ is not such a surprising
3 outcome.
4
5
II T HE S IEG E ME N T A LI T Y OF C A P IT A L IS T
6
R U LIN G C L A S SE S
7
8 All ruling classes in all social systems not characterized by ‘pure demo-
9 cracy’ have to ensure their power to sustain the ‘normal processes of
11110 interaction’. So police forces, courts of law, armies, gods (religious
11 and/or secular), superego, posterity and other mechanisms of social
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12 control play their part to defend the integrity of the social system, to
13 permit accommodation to change, and even (on occasion) to ensure
14 the success of inevitable revolutions in human affairs. The functionalist
15 theory of social control, notwithstanding the imputed normalcy of the
16 processes involved, demonstrates most completely the existence and
17 salience of what I have called the ‘siege mentality of capitalism’ (Sklair,
18 1993). The siege mentality entails the view that social systems are always
19 potentially vulnerable to attack, no less from inside than from outside.
11120 Approval, and reward for behaviour which sustains it, must be main-
21 tained to ensure the persistence of the system; adaptation and change
22 of system properties must be possible where the deŽance proves to be
23 too strong for the system to resist; accommodation where neither the
24 system nor the deviance is clearly more powerful – the siege of Troy is
25 reputed to have lasted ten years. But sieges imply stable territory to be
26 defended and identiŽable enemies to take aggressive action.
27 What is the stable territory of capitalism in the era of globalization?
28 In the classical literature of functionalism, Merton, by stipulating that
29 the opposition between cultural goals and institutional means might
11130 provoke deviant responses in people unable to live up to either or
31 both, is not speaking of any old goals or means. As has often been
32 pointed out, Merton is really speaking about how a dominant system
33 (in this case, middle-class, white America) deŽnes its goals and means
34 not only for itself but for the whole society – all the other systems and
35 sub-systems. The development of ‘subcultural theory’ was a recognition
36 of the fact that Merton was often rather ambiguous about the system
37 in question, sometimes suggesting that it was in fact the whole society
38 he was referring to, at other times suggesting that it was the less inclu-
39 sive system of middle-class, white America. If the former, then it was
11140 patently not the case that the goals and means he identiŽed held for
41 every system and sub-system in the total society; if the latter, the theory
42 can cover only those who were part of the system in the Žrst place –
43 you cannot deviate from goals and means pertaining to a social system
11144 within which you have no part, on the functionalist deŽnition.
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 ARTICLES

1111 Parsons’s avowed aim to found a general theory of action for the
2 social sciences meant that he was always on the look-out for general
3 features of social action and interaction. The most important of these is
4 that: ‘All social action is normatively oriented, and . . . the value-
5 orientations embodied in these norms must to a degree be common to
6 the actors in an institutionally integrated interactive system’ (1951: 251).
7 This is not all. Parsons goes on to say: ‘Probably a stable interactive
8 relationship without common value-patterns is not empirically possible’
9 (1951: 261). This is consensus theory (the functionalist theory of
1110 hegemony) with a vengeance. All systems are, as it were, crucially tied
11 in with the big system which makes society possible. Thus:
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12
Without deliberate planning on anyone’s part there have devel-
13
oped in our type of social system, and correspondingly in others,
14
mechanisms which, within limits, are capable of forestalling and
15
reversing the deep-lying tendencies for deviance to get into the
16
vicious circle phase which puts it beyond the control of ordinary
17
approval–disapproval and reward–punishment sanctions . . . there
18
are, in fact, important unplanned mechanisms in the social system
19
which in a sense ‘match’ the inherent tendencies to socially struc-
1120
tured deviance.
21
(Parsons, 1951: 319–20)
22
23 What is lacking in the functionalist theory of hegemony, and what
24 renders it quite inferior to marxist theories of hegemony, is a concept
25 of interests, particularly class interests. In a system genuinely based on
26 consensus, conformity to basic system goals would clearly be un-
27 objectionable and probably very simple to implement. But when privi-
28 leged minorities try to impose their deŽnitions of goals, means and
29 needs on majorities, conformity becomes objectionable on moral
1130 grounds, and complicated rationales have to be constructed to justify
31 its imposition.2
32 Parsons asks the same questions as Hobbes – how do we solve the
33 problem of order? – and reaches a not dissimilar conclusion: people
34 make (or act as if they had made) a social contract, without looking at
35 the small print of the contract, and they are encouraged to speculate
36 continually on the dire consequences of violating its precepts or, worse,
37 giving it up altogether. But both had the siege mentality, both could not
38 help but see that social order was a real problem only for those with
39 privileges to defend, and both feared the consequences when the masses
1140 started to challenge these privileges. The functionalist approach to
41 hegemony is a special case of this general position.
42 The siege mentality, therefore, is only politic, for any social confor-
43 mity not based on consensus will always tend to break down, challenges
1144 to hegemony will always be imminent. The power to create conformity
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 GLOBAL C APITALISM A ND THE TCC

1111 and to reward it rests with some social groups rather than others, and
2 with some strategically located individuals rather than others.
3 A clear illustration of the correctness of this interpretation of the
4 fragility at the core of capitalism is the ‘problem of business’ in the
5 heartland of capitalist hegemony, the USA. In a path-breaking article,
6 Dreier (1982: 111) shows that since the 1970s, big business in the USA
7 has been mobilized ‘to reverse a dramatic decline in public conŽdence
8 in big business which they blame on the media’.3 To counteract this,
9 business mobilized a Žve-prong campaign, establishing thinktanks to
11110 provide ‘expert comment’ (American Enterprise Institute, Ethics and
11 Public Policy Center, etc. and institutions like the Hoover, Heritage
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12 and Hudson, all revitalized with corporate money); university business

13 journalism courses (the National Association of Manufacturers’
14 Foundation for Economic Freedom textbook and workshops, journalism
15 schools funded by GM, ITT, etc.); awards and prizes to encourage more
16 favourable reporting (UCLA’s Loeb Awards, Champion at Dartmouth,
17 DeKalb at the University of Missouri); detente between business and
18 media through conferences (the Ford seminars, for example); advocacy
19 advertising and increased TV sponsorship of culture (notably the Mobil
11120 series, the Advertising Council’s campaign on the American System,
21 corporate adverts in Columbia Journalism Review, Friedman’s ‘Free to
22 Choose’ TV series, US Chamber of Commerce’s ‘What’s the Issue’, pre-
23 recorded interviews for broadcast, canned editorials, columns and
24 cartoons for newspapers, PR consultants as ‘experts’). An important
25 addition to Dreier’s list is the development of ‘business ethics’, both as
26 an area of academic research (in their survey article, Tsalikis and
27 Fritzsche, 1989, identify over 300 sources) and as a set of responses for
28 big business under threat, elegantly exposed in, appropriately enough,
29 an article in Propaganda Review by Graziano (1989).
11130 Dreier concludes, correctly in my view, that the reason for all this
31 activity is that the ‘capitalist class always faces the threat of challenge
32 from below’ (1982: 130). No doubt at some periods, in the USA and
33 elsewhere, big business is more popular than at others, but the point is
34 that capitalist hegemony needs constant support, attention and origi-
35 nality to sustain it.4 The question now needs to be raised: Is this more
36 or less true for capitalism in the global as compared with the national
37 context?
38
39
III G LO B A L SY S T EM T H EO R Y
11140
41 Since the 1980s a great deal of attention has been paid to ‘globalization’,
42 by scholars (McGrew, 1992) and practitioners, notably in the business
43 press and the annual reports of most of the largest corporations.5 It is
11144 important at the outset to distinguish between national-international
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 ARTICLES

1111 and transnational/global approaches to globalization. This distinction

2 between national-international and transnational/global signals the differ-
3 ence between state-centrist approaches based on the pre-existing even
4 if changing system of nation-states and global approaches based on
5 transnational forces and institutions where the ‘state’ is one among
6 several key actors and, in genuine theories of globalization, no longer
7 the most important (see Sklair, 1995: Ch. 1 especially). Not all writers
8 are clear about this distinction, with resultant confusions.
9 The global system theory propounded here is based on the concept
1110 of transnational practices, practices that cross state boundaries but do
11 not necessarily originate with state agencies or actors. Analytically,
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12 they operate in three spheres: the economic, the political and the
13 cultural-ideological. The whole is what I mean by ‘the global system’.
14 While the global system, at the end of the twentieth century, is not
15 synonymous with global capitalism, what the theory sets out to demon-
16 strate is that the dominant forces of global capitalism are the dominant
17 forces in the global system. The building blocks of the theory are the
18 transnational corporation, the characteristic institutional form of economic
19 transnational practices, a still-evolving transnational capitalist class (TCC)
1120 in the political sphere, and the culture-ideology of consumerism in the
21 culture-ideology sphere.
22 The capitalist class is deŽned here quite conventionally as those
23 who own and/or control the major means of production, distribution
24 and exchange.6 As I argued above, class hegemony does not simply
25 happen as if by magic. The capitalist class expends much time, energy
26 and resources to make it happen and to ensure that it keeps
27 on happening. Like other classes and collectivities of various types
28 one of the ways in which the TCC achieves its aims is through social
29 movements.
1130 The TCC is not necessarily the ruling class. The assumption on which
31 my argument is based is that the TCC is the ruling class in the global
32 capitalist system, a fairly obvious proposition, while the working
33 hypothesis, as it were, is that the global capitalist system is the dominant
34 system in the global system as a whole, a less obvious, indeed a rather
35 contentious claim. Logically, if the capitalist system is the dominant
36 global system, then the TCC is the global ruling class. While there have
37 been several attempts to theorize such a class, notably the international
38 bourgeoisie (more or less a staple of dependency theorists), Atlantic
39 Ruling Class (van der Pijl, 1984), corporate international wing of the
1140 managerial bourgeoisie (Becker et al., 1987: passim), international corpo-
41 rate elite (Fennema, 1982), these have been mostly state-centrist. Under
42 the bold title ‘Who rules the world?’ Goldfrank (1977) calls into question
43 the theoretical utility of state-centrism in researching this question, and
1144 argues:
Folio 520
 GLOBAL C APITALISM A ND THE TCC

1111 There is growing evidence that the owners and managers of multi-
2 national enterprises are coming to constitute themselves as a
3 powerful social class beyond their role behavior: forming interest
4 groups, engaging in common educational and recreational activity,
5 attempting to include top economic managers in the socialist coun-
6 tries (with which trade and joint investments are increasing
7 rapidly), and working out an ideology in which the world is truly
8 their oyster.
9 (Goldfrank, 1977: 35)7
11110
Another source of insight into a global ruling class has emerged from
11
‘the Gramscian turn in International Relations’. Cox (1987: 271) writes
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12
of ‘an emerging global class structure’ and Gill (1990: 94ff. esp.) identi-
13
Žes a ‘developing transnational capitalist class fraction’. While they
14
both grapple creatively with the issue of state-centrism and the possi-
15
bility of various forms of globalization they do not, in my view,
16
make the extraordinarily difŽcult decisive break with state-centrism
17
which is necessary if we are to move forward.8 The concept of trans-
18
national practices and its political form, the TCC, is but a Žrst step
19
towards achieving this.
11120
21
22
The transnational capitalist class
23
24 The transnational capitalist class is the characteristic institutional form
25 of political transnational practices in the global capitalist system. It can
26 be analytically divided into four main fractions:
27
1 TNC executives;
28
2 globalizing bureaucrats;
29
3 globalizing politicians and professionals;
11130
4 consumerist elites (merchants and media).
31
32 While each of the fractions performs distinct functions for the TCC,
33 personnel are often interchangeable between the fractions. Key individ-
34 uals can belong to more than one fraction at the same time, and the
35 transition from membership of one to another group is more or less
36 routinized in many societies. The transnational capitalist class is transna-
37 tional in at least three senses.
38 First, its members tend to have outward-oriented global rather than
39 inward-oriented national perspectives on a variety of issues. The
11140 growing TNC and World Bank emphasis on ‘free trade’ and the shift
41 from import-substitution to export-promotion strategies of most devel-
42 oping countries over the last decade or two have been driven by
43 members of the TCC. Some of the credit for this apparent transforma-
11144 tion in the way in which big business works around the world is
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 ARTICLES

1111 attached to the tremendous growth in business degrees, particularly in

2 the USA and Europe, but increasingly all over the world. In 1990
3 North American International Business surveyed 184 business schools in
4 the USA offering graduate degrees in international business. Arizona’s
5 American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird)
6 came top of the list, graduating 920 master of international manage-
7 ment students in 1989. The second-placed Wharton School (University
8 of Pennsylvania) graduated 743 international MBAs. A spokesman
9 for Wharton commented: ‘We wanted to be a school of management of
1110 the world that just happens to be headquartered in Philadelphia’ (Carey,
11 1990: 36). Between 26 per cent and 40 per cent of all Wharton students
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12 on graduate business programmes were then from outside the USA.

13 Research on INSEAD in Paris suggests that business schools are begin-
14 ning to have a signiŽcant impact on the behaviour and ideology of
15 European executives as well (Marceau, 1989). Salas-Porras (1996: Ch. 7)
16 discusses a related development, the spread of the ‘global entrepren-
17 eurial movement’, with reference to Mexico. There is now a huge
18 literature in the popular and academic business press on the ‘making
19 of the global manager’ and the ‘globalization of business and manage-
1120 ment’ (see Warner, 1996: passim) conŽrming that this is a real
21 phenomenon and not simply the creation of a few ‘globaloney’ myth
22 makers.
23 Second, members of the TCC tend to be people from many countries,
24 more and more of whom begin to consider themselves ‘citizens of the
25 world’ as well as of their places of birth. Leading exemplars of this
26 phenomenon include Jacques Maisonrouge, French-born, who became
27 in the 1960s the chief executive of IBM World Trade; the Swede Percy
28 Barnevik who created Asea Brown Boverei, often portrayed as spending
29 most of his life in his corporate jet; the German Helmut Maucher, CEO
1130 of Nestlé’s far-ung global empire; David Rockefeller, said to be one of
31 the most powerful men in the United States; and the legendary Akio
32 Morita, the founder of Sony.
33 Third, they tend to share similar lifestyles, particularly patterns of
34 higher education (increasingly in business schools, as noted above) and
35 consumption of luxury goods and services. Integral to this process
36 are exclusive clubs and restaurants, ultra-expensive resorts in all
37 continents, ‘the right places to see and be seen’, private as opposed to
38 mass forms of travel and entertainment and, ominously, increasing
39 residential segregation of the very rich secured by armed guards and
1140 electronic surveillance, from Los Angeles to Moscow and from Manila
41 to Beijing.
42 Each fraction of the TCC sees its mission as organizing the conditions
43 under which its interests and the interests of the system as a whole
1144 (which usually but not always coincide) can be furthered in the global,
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 GLOBAL C APITALISM A ND THE TCC

1111 national and local context. The concept of the transnational capitalist
2 class implies that there is one central class that makes system-wide
3 decisions, and that it connects in a variety of ways with the TCC in each
4 locality, region and country. Despite real geographical and sectoral
5 conicts the whole of the transnational capitalist class shares a funda-
6 mental interest in the continued accumulation of private proŽt. The
7 guiding hypothesis of this research programme is that in the struggles
8 within ruling class structures at all levels the balance of power is
9 swinging decisively from the localizers (inner-oriented economic nation-
11110 alists) to the globalizers (outward-oriented neoliberals).
11 What the TCC does as a class is to give a unity to the diverse economic
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12 interests, political organizations and cultural and ideological formations

13 of a very disparate group of people. As in any social class, fundamental
14 unity of interests and purpose does not preclude shorter-term conicts
15 of interests and purpose, both within each of the four fractions and
16 between them. The culture-ideology of global capitalist consumerism is
17 the fundamental value system that keeps the system intact, but it permits
18 a relatively wide variety of choices, for example what I term forms of
19 ‘emergent global nationalisms’ (see below) as a way of satisfying the
11120 needs of the different actors and their constituencies within the global
21 system. The four fractions of the TCC in any geographical and social
22 area, region, country, society, community, perform complementary func-
23 tions to integrate the whole. The achievement of these goals is facilitated
24 by the activities of local and national social movements which are
25 connected in a complex network of global interlocks.
26 A crucial component of this integration of the TCC as a global class
27 is that virtually all senior members of the TCC will occupy a variety of
28 interlocking positions, not only the interlocking directorates that have
29 been the subject of detailed studies for some time in a variety of coun-
11130 tries9 but also connections outside the direct ambit of the corporate
31 sector, the ‘civil society’ as it were servicing the state-like structures of
32 the corporations. Leading corporate executives regularly serve on and
33 often chair the boards of thinktanks, charities, scientiŽc, sports, arts
34 and culture bodies, universities, medical foundations and similar insti-
35 tutions (Domhoff, 1967; Useem, 1984; Scott, 1990: passim). It is in this
36 sense that the claim ‘the business of society is business’ becomes legit-
37 imated in the global capitalist system. Business, particularly the
38 transnational corporation sector, then begins to monopolize symbols of
39 modernity and postmodernity like free enterprise, international compet-
11140 itiveness and the good life, and to transform most, if not all, social
41 spheres in its own image.
42 Having speciŽed the structure of the transnational capitalist class in
43 general, before we can move on to the social movements it creates
11144 in particular places (globally, internationally and in regions, countries,
Folio 523
 ARTICLES

1111 cities, communities) it is important to note that these particular places

2 where this class operates in the unfolding era of globalization, while
3 broadly similar in fundamentals in so far as they are all parts of the
4 global capitalist system, all have their peculiarities. So the homogenizing
5 effects of globalization, one deŽning characteristic of the phenomenon,
6 and the peculiarities and uniqueness of history and culture, are always
7 in tension. This tension creates a globalizing dialectic in which the thesis
8 is the ‘historical local’ (communities, real and imagined of all types, the
9 relatively recent invention of the ‘nation-state’ being the most promi-
1110 nent in the modern phase); the antithesis is the ‘emerging global’, of
11 which the global capitalist system driven by the transnational capitalist
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12 class is the dominant, though not the only force. The synthesis is as yet
13 unformulated.
14
15
IV S OC I A L M OV EM EN T S F O R G LO B A L
16
C A P IT A L ISM
17
18 Most of the literature on social movements deals with mass-based
19 social movements against established authorities, often capitalists and
1120 those directly or indirectly in the service of capitalism. There is little
21 theory or research on social movements for capitalism. In a convinc-
22 ing argument for the importance of ‘elite social movement organiza-
23 tions’ (ESMOs), more or less what I mean by social movements for
24 capitalism, Boies and Pichardo (1993–4) show how resource mobiliza-
25 tion theory, which dominates the study of social movements, at least
26 in the USA, inhibits the study of ESMOs as elites appear to have ready
27 access to resources. Theories of the state (marxist structuralist, instru-
28 mentalist and class-dialectical) fare little better for none of them seems
29 able to cope with the phenomenon. The majority view appears to be
1130 that though elite cultural, political and economic organizations do exist
31 in most parts of the world, elites have no need of social movements
32 to secure social changes in their own interests as these tend to happen
33 anyway. Boies and Pichardo see this as a profoundly mistaken view and
34 while I cannot put words into their mouths, I presume that they would
35 generally accept the ‘siege mentality’ argument developed above.
36 Indeed, their analysis of the Committee on the Present Danger, an ESMO
37 in the USA founded in 1976, provides excellent evidence both for their
38 conception of ESMOs and for what I am calling the siege mentality of
39 corporate capitalism.
1140 Boies and Pichardo make a very telling point about the differences
41 between elite and non-elite social movement organizations, namely that
42 the high social status of ESMO members makes it likely that these orga-
43 nizations will rely on Žnance and expertise rather than personnel and
1144 mass-based activities (Boies and Pichardo, 1993–4: 64). This certainly
Folio 524
 GLOBAL C APITALISM A ND THE TCC

1111 distinguishes ESMOs from most social movements like environmental,

2 labour, peace and human rights movements of various types.
3 Combining this ESMO framework with my analysis of the four frac-
4 tions of the transnational capitalist class, I shall now argue that each
5 fraction of the TCC has thrown up its own social movements for global
6 capitalism locally and that these are slowly being transformed into
7 global movements.
8
9
1 TNC executives
11110
11 The most important fraction of the TCC in the global capitalist system
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12 is composed of TNC executives. The TNC executives are the leading

13 executives of the world’s biggest TNCs (the Fortune Global 500, for
14 example), supported by and their local afŽliates operating either directly
15 as wholly owned subsidiaries or indirectly as related entities of various
16 types, in any part of the world. The executives of these corporations
17 wield power to the extent that they control parts of the global economy
18 and their actions and decisions can have fundamental effects on the local
19 communities in which their corporations are active in any capacity. The
11120 TCC also includes the leading executives of companies which, while not
21 themselves among the biggest TNCs, play a strategic role in the global
22 economy (for example, advertising and public relations agencies).
23 The economic base of these executives is their corporate salaries
24 and their often privileged access to shares and other Žnancial privil-
25 eges in the companies they work for either directly or as nominated
26 members of boards.10 Their ESMOs are the peak business associations
27 and organizations that connect business with other spheres (govern-
28 ments, global politics, social issues, etc.) operating at various levels (see,
29 for example, Burch, 1981; Grant and Marsh, 1977; Lynn and McKeown,
11130 1988).
31 The culture and ideology of TNC executives is an emerging cohesive
32 culture-ideology of global capitalist consumerism, where global brands
33 and tastes are promoted in the effort to turn all cultural products into
34 commercial opportunities. It is important to distinguish here between
35 the individual preferences and lifestyles of executives, which might vary
36 considerably, and the culture and ideology of the class as a whole.
37 Irrespective of how individual executives live their lives, there is no
38 doubt that global marketing and selling have become the ideological
39 rationale for the system as a whole. This does not, however, preclude
11140 modifying these global formulas to suit local tastes, as happens
41 frequently in, for example, the fashion and fast foods sectors. The same
42 can be said for more speciŽc political ‘tastes’ with respect to the neolib-
43 eral agenda. I tend to agree with Useem (1984), Gill (1990) and others
11144 that top business elites tend to be more progressive on social and labour
Folio 525
 ARTICLES

1111 issues than, for example, some of the thinktanks and other institutions
2 that their corporations help to Žnance (cf. Alpert and Markusen, 1980;
3 Cockett, 1995). More systematic research is clearly needed on this
4 question.
5 Transnational corporations and their executives have commonly and
6 with good reason felt insecure, particularly in the foreign countries
7 where they run factories and provide services, whether from physical
8 assault (see Gladwin and Walter, 1980) or expropriation (Minor, 1994).
9 Though both appear to have declined in the past decades, it is not very
1110 surprising that TNCs have routinely taken pre-emptive action to put
11 their case before the public and the authorities with whom they have
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12 to deal. For reasons which cannot be dealt with here, big business tends
13 to be unpopular and its claims tend to be treated with a high degree of
14 cynicism and so it often resorts to indirect ways of creating support for
15 its causes and inuencing public policy in the direction of its sectional
16 interests. Some have argued, and I Žnd this very convincing, that one
17 of the most important ideological tasks of big business is to persuade
18 the population at large that ‘the business of society is business’ and to
19 create a climate of opinion in which trade unions and radical opposi-
1120 tions (especially consumer and environmental movements) are
21 considered to be sectional interests while business groups are not.11 This
22 is, of course, a large part of the contemporary analysis of capitalist
23 (I would add, consumerist) hegemony.
24 There is a good deal of agreement among scholars that (as the
25 Communist Party used to in countries where it was illegal or circum-
26 scribed) big business often creates ‘front’ organizations to propagate its
27 messages. So, many apparently straightforward ‘civic organizations’
28 which also have many of the characteristics of social movements, are
29 largely run by and often largely funded by the corporate elite.12 Most
1130 of the research on these phenomena has been carried out on the USA
31 and most focus on the ways in which big business, domestic (Domhoff,
32 1990) and foreign (Tolchin, 1988), inuences the US government and its
33 various state apparatuses to legislate and rule in the interests of global
34 capital. Though they irt with the now generally discredited ‘conspiracy
35 theory’ of capitalist hegemony, Eisenhower and Johnson [sic!] (1973)
36 provide a useful checklist for studying such organizations and their
37 activities:
38
39 ‘OfŽcial conspiracies’ are those institutionalized ways in which
1140 corporate interests shape and guide policies of the U.S. govern-
41 ment. . . .
42 The main apparatus of ofŽcial conspiracies consists of organiza-
43 tions controlled by members of the corporate elite class that
1144 sponsor research, commission studies, publish inuential journals,
Folio 526
 GLOBAL C APITALISM A ND THE TCC

1111 issue reports, engage in formal and informal dialogues with

2 government ofŽcials, formulate policy guidelines, see that their
3 men [and, increasingly, women] are appointed to key government
4 posts, etc. Such organizations dealing with foreign policy include:
5 Corporate-controlled research-planning advising and report-
6 issuing public affairs groups . . .
7 Businessmen’s organizations . . .
8 Executively commissioned task forces, committees, and missions . . .
9 Citizen (read business) advisory councils and committees . . .
11110 U.S. Representatives to U.N.-sponsored panels . . .
11 Research Institutes . . .
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12 Foundations . . .
13 (Eisenhower and Johnson, 1973: 51–3)13
14
Since the 1970s there have been many excellent studies documenting
15
and analysing this phenomenon in the USA, notably Shoup and
16
Minter (1977) on the Council on Foreign Relations, Burch (1981) on the
17
Business Roundtable, Useem (1980) on business leaders in govern-
18
ment, Sklar (1980) on the Trilateral Commission, while Domhoff (1990)
19
makes the case for a pervasive corporate ruling class whose organiza-
11120
tions steer the state in various policy directions. These Žndings from
21
research on the USA have been replicated to some extent by research
22
from other countries (see Scott, 1990: passim). In the section on con-
23
sumerist elites below I will document how this fraction of the TCC works
24
assiduously to inculcate consumerist values and practices in all spheres
25
of social life.
26
27
28
2 Globalizing bureaucrats
29
11130 Globalizing bureaucrats fulŽl a governance function for the global
31 capitalist system at the local, national, inter-state and eventually
32 global levels where individual states are not directly involved. Typically,
33 these people are to be found dealing with or actually working in local
34 urban and regional growth coalitions fuelled by foreign investment;
35 national bureaucracies responsible for external economic relations
36 (exports, FDI in both directions, market-driven aid agencies); interna-
37 tional organizations, notably the World Bank, IMF, OECD, WTO,
38 regional development banks and some agencies of the UN; and, in my
39 sense, global or transnational organizations like the Bilderberg Group
11140 (Thompson, in Sklar, 1980), Trilateral Commission (Sklar, 1980; Gill,
41 1990) and the International Industrial Conference, organized every four
42 years by the Conference Board and Stanford Research Institute
43 (Townley, 1990). The senior personnel in the major philanthropic foun-
11144 dations (notably Ford and Rockefeller) also fall into this category.
Folio 527
 ARTICLES

1111 Their economic base is state or foundation salaries, which tend to lag
2 substantially behind the private corporate sector but their opportunities
3 for augmenting these salaries are considerable. They frequently move
4 to the private sector, working directly for the corporations whose inter-
5 ests they may have been indirectly serving (or impeding) as public
6 employees. The agencies they work for are, in a sense, their political
7 organizations and in many countries particular local and national state
8 agencies can be identiŽed with, for example, open-door policies, that
9 further the interests of the global capitalist class (whoever else’s inter-
1110 ests they may also further).14 Globalizing bureaucrats also work
11 politically through ‘corporatist’ agencies that combine representatives of
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12 the state, business and labour.

13 The culture and ideology of globalizing bureaucrats tend to be more
14 complex than those of TNC executives. Their dominant ideology appears
15 to be in a process of transformation from state interventionism to neo-
16 liberalism which privileges the unfettered operation of the ‘free market’.
17 This ideology is reinforced daily by cultural practices cohering into what
18 can be termed an emergent global nationalism, characterized as the view
19 that the best interests of the country lie in its rapid integration with the
1120 global capitalist system while maintaining its national identity by
21 marketing national competitive advantages of various types through its
22 own global brands and tourism (now the most important hard-currency-
23 earning industry in an increasing number of local and national
24 economies). 15 Despite some notable exceptions, it is difŽcult to see the
25 top ranks of the globalizing bureaucracies in any other light than retired
26 corporate executives putting their marketing skills to use ‘in the public
27 service’ or the upwardly mobile en route to top TNC jobs.
28
29
3 Globalizing politicians and professionals
1130
31 Globalizing politicians and professionals are a diverse group of people
32 who perform a variety of personal and technical services for the TCC.
33 The failure of left-wing politicians to sustain programmes of genuine
34 reform within (let alone radical challenges to) capitalist hegemony
35 anywhere in the world since the 1970s makes it less difŽcult to under-
36 stand why most ‘successful’ politicians in most countries tend to be
37 ‘capitalist-inspired’ to a greater or lesser extent. Politicians from both
38 conservative and social democratic parties commonly come from and
39 return to the corporate sector and ESMOs (particularly bodies like the
1140 Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission) in various
41 capacities. In most representative democracies elected politicians and
42 ofŽcials must respond to the interests of their local constituents, but
43 these interests are more often than not deŽned in terms of the interests
1144 of the corporations that provide employment and make proŽts locally.
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 GLOBAL C APITALISM A ND THE TCC

1111 Research on these issues is most advanced in the USA, one of the
2 most democratic countries in the world in terms of public access. The
3 works of Useem (1984) on Political Action Committees, and many others
4 on local corporate-politician connections (Domhoff, 1990; Tolchin, 1988),
5 attest to a phenomenon that is probably even more widespread in coun-
6 tries where there is less public scrutiny of such relationships. Research
7 on the USA also conŽrms the important thesis that the corporate sector
8 is well represented in the higher non-elective ofŽces of state by those
9 who return to the corporations after their periods of public service (Scott
11110 1990: Vol. I, passim, esp. Freitag).
11 Globalizing professionals, as a group, have attracted a good deal of
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12 attention in recent years. This is largely due to the growth of two

13 phenomena which, while not exclusive to the era of globalization, have
14 accelerated rapidly since the 1960s. These are, Žrst, the business services
15 industries, ranging from information technology to consulting and
16 public relations of various types; and, second, the rise of the thinktanks,
17 particularly those associated with the neoliberal ‘free trade’ and ‘free
18 enterprise’ agendas (see Alpert and Markusen, 1980; Cockett, 1995;
19 Marchak, 1991). The dominant elites in these institutions are among the
11120 most publicly visible members of the TCC. They are organized politi-
21 cally in their own professional organizations, in the corporatist
22 organizations noted above and in thinktanks and universities, where
23 they market more or less research-based information and policy to
24 corporations and governments. As they are largely funded by govern-
25 ments, transnational corporations and private capitalists, their
26 ‘independence’ is often a matter of dispute. As with globalizing bureau-
27 crats, the culture and ideology of these politicians and professionals is
28 a complex mix of ‘global nationalism’ and neoliberalism. The global
29 network of business consultants like McKinsey and Burson-Marsteller,
11130 the largest PR Žrm in the world, contains many individuals who have
31 worked in business services, government advisory bodies, major corpo-
32 rations, ESMOs and sometimes several at the same time.
33 In a notable study of the Trilateral Commission, one of these elite
34 social movement organizations that has both played host to a galaxy of
35
ruling-class stars and that appears to be of particular signiŽcance for a
36
globalizing agenda, Gill (1990) tries to develop a Gramscian analysis
37
connecting the hegemonic needs of modern capitalism, the creation of
38
what he labels a ‘transnational capitalist class fraction’ and the interna-
39
tionally oriented Trilateralist thrust. Gill argues:
11140
41 in the context of the networks and linkages indicated above [the
42 reference is to Dye, Domhoff, Useem and Scott], the vanguard
43 elements, represented in organizations such as the Conference
11144 Board (which represents blue-chip American corporate capital) and
Folio 529
 ARTICLES

1111 the Trilateral Commission, are able to develop a general class

2 consciousness and cohesion. The process involves rotation of corp-
3 orate leaders into and out of the American executive branch. What
4 is suggested here is that it is possible to denote a relationship
5 between the transnational class fractions discussed earlier and
6 steering patterns in American capitalism.
7 (Gill, 1990: 165)
8
While many might doubt that the ESMOs commonly identiŽed in the
9
USA really do have the power and inuence that those who write about
1110
them claim and, more speciŽcally, that the Trilateral Commission can
11
bear the theoretical weight of Gill’s analysis, it is still nevertheless a
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12
strong argument that the corporate elite in the USA is very active in a
13
very wide range of organizations and activities that are not directly
14
concerned with the balance sheets of their corporations. What I have
15
termed capitalist-inspired politicians and professionals are certainly
16
working on the front line for them.16
17
Another context in which ‘globalizing professionals’ service the global
18
interests of capital is as members of what Evan (1981) calls International
19
ScientiŽc and Professional Associations (ISPAs) and Haas (1992), rather
1120
more conceptually, epistemic communities. Clearly not all of these are
21
globalizing, perhaps most of the leaders of these associations or commu-
22
nities are hostile to global capitalism, but there is enough evidence of
23
the corroding effects of corporate sponsorship of research, networking
24
and academic institution building to suggest that even the most epis-
25
temic of communities Žnd themselves from time to time being
26
persuaded of the correctness or relevance of the corporate case for other
27
than strictly epistemological reasons. If these professionals, mainly scien-
28
tists of various types, can be mobilized in defence of the projects of big
29
business and global capitalism, the impact on public opinion can be
1130
considerable. 17
31
32
33
4 Consumerist elites (merchants and media)
34
35 Consumerist elites are a part of the TNC executives fraction of the TCC,
36 but a part so important for global consumerist capitalism that they
37 require special treatment. Like other TNC executives, their economic
38 base is in salaries and share capital and their culture and ideology is
39 a cohesive culture-ideology of consumerism. However, the speciŽcity
1140 of the members of the media elite lies in their political organization,
41 more speciŽcally their means of political expression through the TV
42 networks, newspapers, magazines and other mass media they own
43 and control. The retail sector, particularly the ubiquitous shopping malls
1144 that are springing up all over the world, can in this sense be regarded
Folio 530
 GLOBAL C APITALISM A ND THE TCC

1111 analytically as part of the mass media. Through the medium of adver-
2 tising the links between media and merchants and the entire marketing
3 system (raw materials, design, production, packaging, Žnancing, trans-
4 portation, wholesaling, retailing, disposal) become concrete. In the
5 apparently inexorable increase in the global connectedness of the mass
6 media and consumerism we can chart the ways in which the TCC
7 appears gradually to be imposing its hegemony all over the world.
8 Global system theory argues that consumerist elites play a central role
9 in global capitalist hegemony. As I noted above, the practical ‘politics’
11110 of this hegemony is the everyday life of consumer society and the
11 promise that it is a global reality for most of the world’s peoples. This
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12 is certainly the most persistent image projected by television and the

13 mass media in general. In one sense, therefore, shopping is the most
14 successful social movement, product advertising in its many forms the
15 most successful message, consumerism the most successful ideology of
16 all time.
17 In his absorbing paper on ‘The “magic of the mall” ‘ Goss (1993) points
18 out that shopping is the second most important leisure-time activity in
19 the USA (after watching TV, and much of TV promotes shopping
11120 anyway). ‘Shopping has become the dominant mode of contemporary
21 public life’ (Goss, 1993: 18). While this is true at present only for the
22 First World and perhaps some privileged elites elsewhere, the rest of
23 the world appears to be following rapidly (Findley et al., 1990), at a time
24 when malls are being critically re-evaluated in the USA (see Robertson,
25 1990).
26 Goss argues that the idea of the mall signals a third, public, space
27 after home and work/school, to see and be seen in. Malls are not just
28 places to buy and sell but are increasingly taking on other functions (for
29 example, educational, cultural, child care), very much oriented, however,
11130 to the middle classes. They aim to provide safe, secure environments
31 for ‘normal’ consumers, but are reluctant to provide genuine public
32 services like drinking fountains, public toilets, telephones, etc. where
33 deviants or non-shoppers can congregate. Goss reports that the average
34 length of time spent in shopping centre trips in the USA has increased
35 from twenty minutes in 1960 to nearly three hours in the 1990s, no doubt
36 facilitated by the omnipresent grazing opportunities in the fast food
37 outlets. Art and museums are now being brought into the mall directly:
38 the Žrst US National Endowment for the Arts grant to a private corpo-
39 ration went for art projects in malls.
11140 Like capitalism, the process of taking acts of purchasing necessities of
41 consumption out of local market-places, redeŽning this as shopping and
42 relocating the process increasingly into the more controlled environ-
43 ments of department stores and malls, did not just happen. The
11144 transformation of the built environment and the renegotiation of the
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 ARTICLES

1111 Table 1 The four fractions of the transnational capitalist class and their elite
2 social movement organizations (ESMOs)
3
4 Economic base ESMOs Culture and
ideology
5
6 TNC Corporate salaries, Peak business Cohesive
7 executives perks, shares organizations, culture-ideology
8 ‘fronts’ of consumerism
9
1110 Globalizing State salaries, perks, State and inter- Emergent global
11 bureaucrats extras state agencies, nationalism,
foundations, economic
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12
corporatist neoliberalism
13
organizations
14
15 Politicians and Salaries and fees, Professional and Emergent global
16 professionals perks corporatist nationalism and
17 organizations, economic neo-
18 thinktanks liberalism
19
1120 Consumerist Corporate salaries, Peak business Cohesive culture-
21 elites perks, shares organizations, ideology of
22 mass media consumerism
23 selling spaces
24
25
26 meaning of shopping from satisfaction of basic needs for the masses
27 into a form of mass entertainment, a major leisure activity, is one of the
28 greatest achievements of global capitalism. This transformation has been
29 achieved in an amazing variety of ways, from ‘advocacy advertising’
1130 where large corporations take out series of very expensive adverts to
31 persuade people of the virtues of ‘free enterprise’ (Sethi, 1977) to ‘the
32 commercialized classroom’ (Knaus, 1992), from ‘advertorials’ where
33 sponsors pay for insertions that look like editorial content in the mass
34 media (Stout et al., 1989) to ‘the ultimate capital investment’, i.e. strategic
35 philanthropy (Kyle, 1990).18 Advertising agencies have for some time
36 been surveying ‘the global consumer’ (Silver, 1990) and extending
37 the geographical scope of their regular global brand preference
38 rankings.
39 The point of the concept of the ‘culture-ideology of consumerism’
1140 is precisely that, under capitalism, the masses cannot be relied upon
41 to keep buying, obviously when they have neither spare cash nor
42 access to credit, and less obviously when they do have spare cash and
43 access to credit. The creation of a culture-ideology of consumerism,
1144 therefore, is bound up with the self-imposed necessity that capitalism
Folio 532
 GLOBAL C APITALISM A ND THE TCC

1111 must be ever-expanding on a global scale. This expansion crucially

2 depends on selling more and more goods and services to people whose
3 ‘basic needs’ (a somewhat ideological term) have already been comfort-
4 ably met as well as to those whose ‘basic needs’ are unmet.
5 The four fractions of the transnational capitalist class, their elite social
6 movement organizations (ESMOs) and ideologies are represented rather
7 schematically in Table 1.
8
9
V C O N C LU SI ON
11110
11 This article has attempted to articulate a set of ideas about a global
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12 capitalist class and set out a method to study it in action. This method
13 assumes that those who own and control the most substantial econ-
14 omic resources (principally the TNCs) will be in a position to further
15 their interests to an extent and in ways not available to most other
16 groups in society. However, those who run the transnational corpora-
17 tions cannot achieve their ends alone. They require help from
18 sub-groups, notably consumerist elites, globalizing bureaucrats and
19 politicians and professionals, to carry out their work effectively. This
11120 help is often organized through elite social movement organizations,
21 social movements for capitalism. Global system theory provides some
22 underlying arguments to support this way of analysing the class
23 structure of global capitalism and to study the extent to which these
24 movements cross local, national and international boundaries to become
25 truly global manifestations of the TCC in action.
26 Communication between the four fractions of the transnational
27 capitalist class is facilitated in a variety of ways, notably interlocking
28 directorates, cross-memberships of groups in different spheres (business,
29 government, politics, professions, media, etc.) and leadership roles of
11130 business notables in non-business activities, thinktanks, charities, univer-
31 sities, medical, arts and sports foundations and the like. In these ways
32 the idea that ‘the business of society is business’ is promulgated through
33 all spheres of society with the consequence that ‘non-business’ activities
34 become more and more commercialized, as can be clearly demonstrated
35 for social services, the arts, sports, science, education and most other
36 spheres of social life. The membership of the TCC illustrates the extent
37 of these interlocks and cross-connections.
38 What has been attempted here is the analysis of how the TCC acts
39 as a class, moving somewhat beyond the general truth that capitalists
11140 seek to maximize their proŽts in any way that they can, including
41 improving the business climate (putting pressure on governments to act
42 in the interests of business), improving their knowledge base (employing
43 consultants) and improving their image (doing good works). The widely
11144 accepted argument that most ‘foreign’ and ‘domestic’ TNCs all over the
Folio 533
 ARTICLES

1111 world have globalized in signiŽcant ways was linked to evidence of the
2 globalizing project of the ‘globalizing bureaucrats’ (in local and national
3 government and international agencies) and ‘politicians and profes-
4 sionals’ (leaders of the major parties, academics, scientists, thinktanks,
5 business consultants).
6 A series of detailed case studies on resource allocation, material
7 rewards, key decisions, institutional changes and agenda building would
8 be necessary to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the TCC,
9 globally, really has acted as a class since the early 1980s. My contention
1110 is that the theory and method outlined in this article would be of value
11 in such an endeavour, as I argue for the case of the TCC in Australia
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12 (Sklair, 1996).
13 While capitalism increasingly organizes globally, the resistances
14 to global capitalism can only be effective where they can disrupt its
15 smooth running (accumulation of private proŽts) locally and can Žnd
16 ways of globalizing these disruptions. No social movement appears even
17 remotely likely to overthrow the three fundamental institutional
18 supports of global capitalism that have been identiŽed, namely the
19 TNCs, the transnational capitalist class and the culture-ideology of con-
1120 sumerism. Nevertheless, in each of these spheres there are resistances
21 expressed by social movements. The TNCs, if we are to believe their
22 own propaganda, are beset by opposition, boycott, legal challenge and
23 moral outrage from the consumers of their products and by disruptions
24 from their workers. The transnational capitalist class often Žnds itself
25 opposed by vocal coalitions when it tries to impose its will in the old
26 and the new ways. The problem for global capitalism is that each of its
27 own social movements, in the form of elite social movement organiza-
28 tions, throws up mass movements in many forms to challenge its
29 hegemony.
1130
31
32 N OT E S
33 1 The book was Žrst published in 1994 but apparently withdrawn for
34 ‘revisions’ after a threat of legal action over an insulting letter from one
35 right-wing ideologue about another reproduced in the text.
36 2 As I argue in the context of the culture-ideology of consumerism in the
capitalist global system (Sklair, 1995).
37 3 He explains this in terms of three trends: the explosion of social protest
38 (blacks, students, paciŽsts, women, consumers, anti-nuclear environmental-
39 ists); ofŽcial actions that gave movement-induced issues credibility (Kerner
1140 report, Nader, EPA, OSHA, EEOC and reform-minded politicians and
41 ofŽcials); and news media personnel (participatory journalism). ‘Anti-big
business’ sentiment has existed in the USA and probably elsewhere since at
42 least the nineteenth century.
43 4 Evidence from other countries on the opposition to big business and capi-
1144 talist hegemony can be gleaned from the general social movements literature.
Folio 534
 GLOBAL C APITALISM A ND THE TCC

1111 In an informative book about anti-business pressure groups in Australia,

2 Browning (1990) claims that the Left is organized in an anti-business global
network. See also Ayn Rand’s ‘America’s persecuted minority: big business’
3
(1967) and Boies and Pichardo (1993–4) on the Committee on the Present
4 Danger. The relatively small volume of research on how big business orga-
5 nizes to sustain its hegemony is discussed in Section IV.
6 5 Stauffer (1979) in a useful study based on 358 annual reports from 197
7 different US TNCs, shows that ‘globalism’ was an important theme in the
1970s.
8
6 Of the several attempts to analyse the capitalist class as a ‘ruling class’ in
9 one country, more or less, the broad arguments of Domhoff (1967), Zeitlin
11110 (1974), Connell (1977) and Useem (1984) seem to me the most useful. This
11 article tries to show how globalization has changed the structure and
dynamics of this class and to start to explore the question of the extent to
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12
which the capitalist class, which all the above primarily analyse in national
13 terms, is the ‘ruling class’ in the global system.
14 7 As will be obvious, my conception of the transnational capitalist class
15 develops similar ideas. I am very grateful to G. William Domhoff for
16 providing me with a copy of Goldfrank’s paper in 1995.
17 8 I do not claim to have done this entirely myself, though it is certainly my
goal. I gladly acknowledge debts to these class theorists.
18 9 For some of the most inuential of these studies see Stokman et al. (1985),
19 Mizruchi and Schwartz (1987) and the three-volume collection edited by
11120 Scott (1990). Recent notable contributions include Alexander (1994) for
21 Australia, Carroll and Lewis (1991) for Canada, Windolf and Beyer (forth-
22 coming) for Germany and Britain, and Salas-Porras (1996) for Mexico.
10 This bland statement conceals a furious dispute over the so-called ‘manage-
23 rialism’ thesis of Berle and Means and the classic refutation by Zeitlin (1974),
24 for which see Scott (1990: vol. II).
25 11 There is some evidence from the USA that unions have begun to Žght
26 business on its own terms, through what Jarley and Maranto (1990) call
27 ‘union corporate campaigns’. The long-term consequences of this for the
labour movement are difŽcult to predict.
28 12 Radical publications like Multinational Monitor and others associated with
29 the name of Ralph Nader in the USA frequently ‘expose’ such organiza-
11130 tions. ‘Your guide to green groups. Where top advertisers turn for help’,
31 Advertising Age (28 October 1991), inadvertently (or not?) lists corporate
funding of environmental groups. See also Pell (1990). Poole (1989) uses
32 similar evidence to argue, paradoxically, that ‘Big business bankrolls the
33 Left’.
34 13 As their context is Allende’s regime in Chile in the early 1970s, perhaps
35 they can be excused for the phrase ‘ofŽcial conspiracy’.
36 14 See Tolchin (1988) on ‘globalizing bureaucrats’ in city, state and federal
governments in the USA and my own brief discussions of similar
37 phenomena in Australia (Sklair, 1996) and elsewhere (1995: passim).
38 15 Wallis (1991: 90) in a most interesting piece showing how art is used to ‘sell
39 nations’, quotes Shifra Goldman on the ‘global alignment of power elites
11140 from nations of the First and Third Worlds whose objective is the control
41 of resources and cultural conŽgurations across national boundaries’. Wallis
discusses major exhibitions on Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey. The latter
42 coincided with the ending of a ban on imported cigarettes, permitting the
43 expansion of Philip Morris, a major sponsor, into Turkey. The marketing of
11144 cities (see Ashworth and Voogd, 1990) is also of great relevance here.

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 ARTICLES

1111 16 Commenting on the ‘image problem of the Trilateral Commission’, Gill

2 reports that two TC ofŽcials ‘conducted over Žfty TV and radio interviews
during 1979–80, to dispel “myths”. Public relations activity generated hun-
3
dreds of newspaper articles (many of which were written by Commission
4 members, their relatives, or friends)’ (Gill, 1990: 168). This is interesting testi-
5 mony to the siege mentality of the transnational capitalist class and to the
6 ways it can and does react to criticism through its ESMOs.
7 17 The role of the epistemic community of food scientists in the British beef
saga of the 1990s (and the processed foods industry in general) would make
8
an excellent case study of the TCC in action.
9 18 For a useful Japanese perspective on this issue, see ‘Corporate philanthropy’,
1110 Tokyo Business Today (May 1990): 30–4. This item has an interesting ‘Selected
11 list of Japanese corporate donations to universities’, a theme that Domhoff,
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12 Useem and others discuss for the USA and the UK.
13
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