Neoliberal Entrenchment of North Atlantic Capital. From Corporate Self-Regulation to State Capture

Abstract

After the financial crisis of 2007–8, neoliberal capitalism by all appearances has entrenched instead of being displaced. Its political–economic programme or ‘comprehensive concept of control’ continues to hold society in thrall. This was different in the crisis of 1974–5 when the corporate liberalism of the postwar years and its industry-centred class compromise were beginning to be replaced by finance-led neoliberalism and a compromise with asset-owning middle classes. Under corporate liberalism, real capital accumulation was protected from the ‘rentier’/‘money-dealing’ fraction of capital associated with speculative investment; neoliberalism has allowed its resurgence. Large corporations in the first phase of the transition (‘systemic neoliberalism’) embarked on a strategy of transnational restructuring no longer dependent on 1960s-style state support. In the process, financial group formation, here measured by dense director interlocks (≥2) amongst the largest corporations in the North Atlantic economy (where this type of corporate governance obtains), was intensified. The resurgence of money-dealing capital and rentier incomes in the 1990s led to a decline in real accumulation (‘predatory neoliberalism’), and after the crisis of 2007–8, to a demise of the financial group structure of Atlantic capital as the network of dense interlocks radically thins out and capital comes to rely on states again, this time to protect it from a democratic correction of the neoliberal regime and with state autonomy greatly reduced by public debt.

Keywords:

• neoliberalism
• corporate governance
• director interlocks
• crisis
• state capture

Acknowledgements

We thank two anonymous referees for constructive comments.

Funding

This work was supported by the British Academy, grant number [SG100972].

Notes on contributors

Kees van der Pijl is Fellow of the Centre for Global Political Economy and professor emeritus in the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex. His latest book is The Discipline of Western Supremacy (2014), the third volume of a trilogy on Modes of Foreign Relations and Political Economy.

Yuliya Yurchenko is a Lecturer in International Business at the Department of International Business and Economics Department and a Researcher at Centre for Business Network Analysis and the Public Services International Research Unit, University of Greenwich. She is also an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex.