Who Rules the World - Ownership and Finance Capital

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Author(s)
Murray, Georgina
Peetz, David
Year published
2010
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This paper examines the relationship of a transnational capitalist class to the nation state through the control that is exercised by virtue of the ownership & direction of equity funds. We use cross-national data on corporate assets, turnover & shareholdings to investigate the direct & indirect ownership & hence control of the world's 250 largest corporations. We identify key corporations that in turn hold ownership (through shareholdings) that crosses nation-state boundaries & establishes substantial power in relation to nation states. We find that the influence of finance capital extends far beyond the provision ...
View more >This paper examines the relationship of a transnational capitalist class to the nation state through the control that is exercised by virtue of the ownership & direction of equity funds. We use cross-national data on corporate assets, turnover & shareholdings to investigate the direct & indirect ownership & hence control of the world's 250 largest corporations. We identify key corporations that in turn hold ownership (through shareholdings) that crosses nation-state boundaries & establishes substantial power in relation to nation states. We find that the influence of finance capital extends far beyond the provision of loans to finance corporate expansion. Both directly & indirectly (through funds they administer), finance capital owns or at least controls the ownership of a substantial proportion of largest transnational corporations, to such an extent that the idea of distinguishing fractions of capital between 'finance capital', 'manufacturing capital' & other sectors of capital becomes increasingly problematic.
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View more >This paper examines the relationship of a transnational capitalist class to the nation state through the control that is exercised by virtue of the ownership & direction of equity funds. We use cross-national data on corporate assets, turnover & shareholdings to investigate the direct & indirect ownership & hence control of the world's 250 largest corporations. We identify key corporations that in turn hold ownership (through shareholdings) that crosses nation-state boundaries & establishes substantial power in relation to nation states. We find that the influence of finance capital extends far beyond the provision of loans to finance corporate expansion. Both directly & indirectly (through funds they administer), finance capital owns or at least controls the ownership of a substantial proportion of largest transnational corporations, to such an extent that the idea of distinguishing fractions of capital between 'finance capital', 'manufacturing capital' & other sectors of capital becomes increasingly problematic.
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Conference Title
XVII ISA World Congress of Sociology. Sociology on the Move. Conference Abstracts
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Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2010. This is the author-manuscript version of this paper. It is posted here with permission of the copyright owners for your personal use only. No further distribution permitted. For information about this conference please refer to the conference's website or contact the authors.
Subject
Heterodox Economics