Debate on the New Global Capitalism: Transnational Capitalist Class, Transnational State Apparatuses, and Global Crisis

ABSTRACT

The state-centrism and nation-state/inter-state framework that reifies and fetishizes the nation-state and informs much theorization and analysis of world politics, political economy, and class structure is ever more incongruent with twenty-first century world developments. An epochal shift is underway to a new phase in the on-going and open-ended evolution of world capitalism, global capitalism, characterized by the rise of truly transnational capital and the integration of every country into a new globalized system of production and finance, a transnational capitalist class as would be global ruling class, and transnational state apparatuses. The anomalies in traditional approaches demonstrate the need for a Kuhnian paradigm shift. Competition among capitals and international conflicts are endemic to the system yet competition takes on new forms in the age of globalization not necessarily expressed as national rivalry. Global capitalism is in crisis. The more enlightened strata of the transnational elite want stronger transnational state apparatuses in order to cement the rule of the transnational capitalist class, bring a measure of regulation and governance from above, and stabilize the crisis-ridden system. A global rebellion against the transnational capitalist class is underway but popular, working class, and leftist struggles face many challenges.

KEYWORDS:

• Global capitalism
• transnational capitalist class
• transnational state
• global crisis
• state-centrism
• critique of realism
• global hegemony
• transnational corporations

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editors of International Critical Thought.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

William I. Robinson is Professor of Sociology and Global and International Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). He is also affiliated with the Latin American and Iberian Studies Program, and with the Global and International Studies Program at UCSB. His scholarly research focuses on: macro and comparative sociology, globalization and transnationalism, political economy, political sociology, development and social change, immigration, Latin America and the third world, and Latina/o studies. His Web page is http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/robinson/. And his recent work is Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Notes

1. Most recently, see my exchange with Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin (Robinson 2014a, 147–65), and their response (Panitch and Gindin 2014, 193–204). See also, inter alia: my article “Global Capitalism and The Emergence of Transnational Elites” (Robinson 2012) and six responses (Carroll 2012; De la Barra 2012; Dello Buono 2012; Madrid 2012; Murray 2012; Prashad 2012) to it in the same issue; my critique of Ellen Meiksins Wood, “The Pitfalls of Realist Analysis of Global Capitalism: A Critique of Ellen Meiksins Wood’s Empire of Capital” (Robinson 2007); my work, “Global Capitalism and Nation-State Centric Thinking: What We Don’t See When We Do See Nation-States, Response to Arrighi, Moore, van der Pijl, and Went” in Science and Society (Robinson 2001–2002); and “Social Theory and Globalization: The Rise of a Transnational State” in Theory and Society (Robinson 2001). See also my exchange (Robinson 2009) with Paul Cammack (2009) in Geopolitics, History and International Relations. My own theoretical propositions on the new transnational stage of world capitalism and the most detailed response to my critics are to be found in Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity (Robinson 2014b).

2. Most notably in the English language literature were David Harvey (2005), The New Imperialism, and Ellen Meiksins Wood (2005), Empire of Capital.

3. Among those associated with the idea of a TCC in the English-language literature, apart from myself, are, inter alia: Leslie Sklair (see especially The Transnational Capitalist Class [Sklair 2000]); Jerry Harris (Robinson and Harris 2000), who co-published with me “Towards a Global Ruling Class? Globalization and the Transnational Capitalist Class,” and William Carroll (2010), The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class. There are significant differences among us on how to interpret the TCC.

4. I have demonstrated these processes in Latin America in considerable detail in Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Globalization, and Social Change (Robinson 2003), and Latin America and Global Capitalism: A Critical Globalization Perspective (Robinson 2008).

5. See, especially, accounts by the “neo-Gramscian” and the “Amsterdam” schools in international relations. See, e.g., Kees Van der Pijl (1984), The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class; Henk Overbeek (2004), “Transnational Class Formation and Concepts of Control: Towards a Genealogy of the Amsterdam Project in International Political Economy” in Journal of International Relations and Development; Bieler and Morton (2001), Social Forces in the Making of the New Empire.

6. For details, see inter alia, the Tata Group’s webpage, http://www.tata.com/aboutus/index/About-us.

7. On these details, see Naomi Sakr (2013).