Transnationalism Bibliography

Question(s) addressed by the author and working arguments

To demonstrate that the systematic study of major corporations from the Third World is important for debates about the national bourgeoisie, comprador capitalism and the controversy that currently surrounds the contentious concepts of the developmental state and globalization.

Third World Capitalist Classes are globalizing, and this phenomena can be studied from the stand point of the global system theory; that is based on the concept of transnational practices that cross state boundaries but do not necessarily originate with state agencies of actors. These practices operate in tree spheres: the economic, the political and the cultural ideological. The whole is the global system. What the theory sets out to demonstrate is that the dominant forces of global capitalism are the dominant forces on the global system. The building blocks of the theory are the transnational corporation (TNC), the transnational practices, the transnational capitalist class and the culture ideology of consumerism.

Conceptual references to transnational – transnationalism

Transnational Capitalist class (TCC) can be analytically divided into four main fractions:

i) TNC executives

ii) Globalising burocrats

iii) globalising politicians and professionals,

iv) consumerist elites.

a) The economic interests of its members are increasingly globally linked rather that exclusively local and national in origin

b) The TCC seeks to exert economic control in the workplace, political control in domestic and international politics, and cultural-ideology control in every day life through specific forms of global competitive and consumerist rhetoric and practice

c) Members of the TCC have outward-oriented global rather than inward-oriented local perspectives on the most economic, politic and culture-ideology issues

d) Members of the TCC tend to share similar lifestyles, particularly patterns of higher education and consumption of luxury goods and service.

e) Members of the TCC seek to project images of themselves as citizens of the world as well as of their places of birth (cosmopolitan business tycoons)

The concept of the TCC implies that there is one central inner circle that makes system-wide decisions, and that it connects with members of the TCC in each locality, country and region

Conclusions or Final Remarks

Large corporations from the third world are not restricted to certain countries, regions or industries. State ownership of these corporations is in decline Their activities are beginning to approximate those of the large corporations of the First World. Therefore, it appears that major TW Corporations are globalizing. This provides the basis for the hypothesis that Third World Capitalist Classes are also globalizing and that the Global System Theory is the most dynamic model for understanding this changes.