1) Bibliographic data
Sklair, Leslie (2002) “The Transnational Capitalist Class and Global
Politics: Deconstructing the Corporate-State Connection,” International
Political Science Review, V. 23-2, Apr.:159-74.
2) Question(s) addressed by the author and working arguments
Transnational corporations engage in a variety of political activities
that take place at all levels of the political sphere, from community
and urban through national and global politics, and involve many different
groups of actors. This article addresses two sets of questions: (1)
What forms do these activities take? (2) Do they enhance or undermine
democracy?
Transnational Corporations (TNCs) clearly engage in political activities
of various types, but the exact forms of these engagements and the roles
of the various actors in them have not been subject to a great deal of
a systematic research. While TNCs have always been political actors,
the demands of economic globalization require them to be political at
the global level in a more systematic sense than previously.
The Transnational Capitalist Class is composed of four main, interlocking
groups:
• Corporate executives and their local affiliates (the corporate fraction)
• globalizing bureaucrats and politicians (the state fraction)
• globalizing professionals (the technical fraction)
• merchants and media (the consumerist fraction)
The global system and its central concept of the transnational capitalist
class suggests how we might fruitfully analyze the promotional culture
of cigarettes and the social forces that support it. TNC executives,
globalizing bureaucrats, politicians and professionals, and consumerist
elites all play their parts individually and in concert to bring this
promotional culture of cigarettes and smoking into as many institutional
sectors of all societies as they can and to create a dependency on both
the drug (nicotine) and the money (financial dependency of many types)
that the tobacco industry brings with it.
TNCs and their allies are political actors and that they do achieve significant
success in getting across their message that there is no alternative
to global capitalism. TNCs are legal bodies to every right to act legally
to further their interest.
3) Conceptual references to transnational-transnationalism
Transnational Corporation and transnational capitalist class.
4) Conclusions or Final Remarks
The political activities of the TNCs and their allies, therefore, raise
serious doubts hoe well our democrats are working with respect to everyday
economic issues, global trade and investment, health and safety of
workers and safety of workers in health. This is all in the name of
globalization, free trade and international competitiveness and the
hope, that, somehow, it will make poor people better off.
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