From Canadian corporate elite to transnational capitalist class: transitions in the organization of corporate power

Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, The, August, 2007 by William K. Carroll

As with Canada, it is worthwhile to explore the spatial aspect of global corporate power. In a recent study (Carroll 2007a), I map the global city network as a configuration of interlocking directorates among the world's 350 major corporations. The analytical starting point is the network of corporate interlocks, but by aggregating these to the level of cities, we can trace the network of interurban corporate-elite relations. Consider first the distribution of transnational network participation across cities. Cities vary sharply in the degree to which the firms they host participate in transnational interlocking. Overwhelmingly, the transnational network is based in the cities of northeastern North America and northwestern Europe, with Paris, London and New York claiming the most participants. In North America, the Atlantic ruling class' top tier does not extend to Dallas or San Francisco; in Europe it does not reach Rome.

In Figure 1, I present the entire interurban network of 70 connected cities, which is strongly clustered along national lines. The thickness of lines indicates how many interlocks connect firms based in each pair of cities. New York appears as the central hub of the U.S. network (most of whose cities have no transnational links). New York's transnational ties lead primarily to London, which has the most cosmopolitan ties. London and Paris entirely dominate their national networks. Several interurban corridors provide strong bases for national integration--e.g., Tokyo-Osaka, Montreal-Toronto, Munich-Frankfurt. But the German network is also densely linked to Paris, and to the extensive network it houses. Six findings stand out: 1) the close ties between Montreal, Paris and Brussels (thanks to the Desmarais-Frere group); 2) the Paris-centred intermingling of European corporate elites; 3) the very sparse ties between Paris and American cities; 4) the position of London, as well as Dutch, Swiss and Canadian cities, as intermediaries between the U.S. and Continental Europe; 5) the marginality of Tokyo, Osaka and Melbourne; and 6) a nearly complete absence of cities from capitalism's semi-periphery.

It would be difficult, however, to characterize what Peter Taylor (2004) terms the new network bourgeoisie as a dominant fraction in the global structure of capital and class. The transnational interurban network is carried by just a few dozen people holding directorships across borders, and involves a minority of the world's largest companies. The highly uneven participation of cities within the network, and the overall salience of with-in-country ties dispute the notion that with the rise of global cities, state-society complexes and nationally integrated corporate elites have been "disorganized" and "disarticulated" (Scott, 1997: 241). As an integrated formation the new network bourgeoisie seems very much in its infancy (Carroll, 2007a).

On this issue, however, one major caveat must be registered. There are other kinds of relations, based in other forms of corporate power, which might help integrate a new network bourgeoisie. Within each transnational enterprise, operational power radiates from head office and extends, via subsidiaries, into labour processes in various cities and countries. Alderson and Beckfield's (2004) study of the network of parent-subsidiary relations provides a mapping of global operational power. At the centre of the network is a densely connected block of four cities: Tokyo, New York, Paris and London. Tokyo--quite marginal in the global network of interlocking directorates--is the most central point in the entire interurban network of parent-to-subsidiary relations, owing to the great reach of the many TNCs headquartered there. Quite independently of the corporate-elite network, the transnational structure of operational power provides a basis for a "new network bourgeoisie," centred in four global cities of the Triad and extending through parent-subsidiary relations to more than 3,000 cities worldwide. (8) Important though they are in organizing strategic, allocative and hegemonic power, elite-level relations give us only the top tier of a more extensive structure. If we include within the new network bourgeoisie the executives that manage the many subsidiaries of TNCs (as does Sklair [2001] in defining the transnational capitalist class [TCC]), then its basis seems much more substantial.