Diagnóstico del estado actual de la preparación de la familia para

Theorising the formation of the TCC as the latest form of the development of the global capitalist system, or as William Robinson describes it the “maturation of global capitalism”15, can be traced back to several attempts devoted to exploring the emergence of the capitalist class and the capitalist relations of production in social, political, and economic spaces that transcend the state’s territory. More specifically, the literature focused on here is concerned with the social, economic and political space of the advanced capitalist states north of the Atlantic. This space should be seen as the locus from which capitalism in its current structure as a global system has emerged and from which the TCC has arisen, and towards which it continues to gravitate.

Van der Pijl’s the Making of An Atlantic Ruling Class, and Stephen Gill’s Atlantic Relations: Beyond the Reagan Era and his American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission embody a comprehensive accounts of theorising capitalism and the formation of the capitalist class beyond state’s borders. Both authors analyse the emergence of the capitalist class on a transnational level with an emphasis placed on its centralization in the North Atlantic region. For our research, this represents a legitimate and an adequate point of departure from which to move forward and build a coherent account of the emergence, structure and power of the TCC. Although these accounts base the analysis of the emergence of a capitalist class within a state- centred framework and explain its formation as an imperative to manage inter-state relations in a Cold War context marked by American hegemony, they nonetheless offer a useful background against which to understand any possible distinctiveness from later attempts.

22

Moreover, it shows the extent to which IPE has advanced the analysis of the TCC and the theoretical tools used and the gaps left unaddressed.

From a neo-Gramscian perspective, Van der Pijl’s argument stresses the importance of taking into consideration the post-war hegemonic position of the United States in the world economy in forging a sort of capital alliance between European and American Business. For him, the “history of Atlanticism, as both ideology and an actual process of class formation” must be understood in light of the development of American capitalism16_{. That is, in the post-war period}

there developed three US strategic policies aimed at bringing this ‘Atlantic Unity’ into life. The first was “Atlantic Universalism” designed at the end of WWII in order to facilitate the expansion of the circuits of US capital to Europe. The second was “Atlantic Union” manifest in the Marshall Plan which is complementary to the first strategy. The final strategy was the “Atlantic Partnership” initiative that sought to restore the unity of the “Atlantic world” after a period of conflict between American and European MNCs in Europe in the 1960s due to Nixon’s domestic economic orientation.

Thus, these three grand strategies of the US gave grounds to the process of economic and financial integration across the Atlantic and allowed a further internationalisation of capital. By doing so, he believes the grounds were furnished for the bourgeoisie on both sides to “regroup and develop a series of comprehensive concepts of control” (outlined below) which

allowed the enforcement of its legitimised hegemonic position nationally and internationally and set the foundation of the Atlantic ruling class17. These concepts of control, Van der Pijl explains, serve as projects of conducting public affairs and social control in a way that is seen

16 _{Kees Van der Pijl, The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class (London: Verso, 1984), p. xvii.}

17_{Ibid. p. xiii, p. 7. In his view, the configuration of the Atlantic ruling class and the interests it represents have}

varied through each level of the internationalization of capital. Its formation passed through three main stages of capital internationalization. The first stage had taken place with the American railway rapid prosperity; the second was that of inter-war period and extended to the late 1940s as national productive capital had dominated, and the final stage has occurred as a result of the spread of the American transnational firms. Ibid, p. Xiv.

23

to be legitimate in the eyes of the dominant class as well as the society. However, these concepts are never fixed but constantly reconfigured to accommodate varying interests within the class, he maintains18.

For Van der Pijl, the structure of the Atlantic ruling class has varied according to the prevalent concept of control. Characteristic of the Atlantic Ruling Class formation and hegemony are two primary concepts of control. The first he calls the “liberal-internationalist” and its hegemony commenced with the development of an “Atlantic circuit” of financial capital led by the money-capital bourgeoisie in early 20th century. It resurfaced again from the 1980s onwards after a relative decline in the face of another concept of control which he calls the “state-monopoly” concept.

The “state-monopoly” concept of control reflects the position of productive capital that dominated the bourgeoisie in the inter-war years and again after the war until the mid-1970s19_.

In other words, it is an embodiment of the corporate liberalism forming the basis of Keynesian economics that is construed to synthesise free market tendencies, representative of the liberal internationalists, and state interference which materialised as a manifestation of labour power and the larger needs of industry in the post-war period20. It was associated with the intensification of finance capital in the 1960s, representing organised labour and productive capital. It eventually collapsed when the economic power of money-capital, and some fractions of productive capital such as oil capital, increased in the late-1960s and early-1970s against the background of economic recession and crisis. Thereby, the old liberal-internationalist concept

18_{Ibid. pp. 2-3.}

19 _{It is worth noting here that the productive-capital concept of control sought to protect the national and the}

regional industry. With state monopoly it was perceived to be in the general interest of all classes of society.

20 _{This corporate-liberal synthesis that was built on flexible labour relations that was imported to Europe from the}

24

of control underpinning the hegemony of the Atlantic Ruling Class was brought back in response to the new economic realities of the 1970s21_.

Generally speaking, Van der Pijl sees the process of the ruling class formation and the consolidation of its power as entailing “a formula of reconciliation or compromise” between, on the one hand, the interests of competing capitalists, and on the other hand between the latter and the interests of wider society. This was seen as a prerequisite in order to reinforce desirable social conditions of production. For him, a concept of control “is potentially hegemonic if it combines a mutually compatible blueprint for both the conduct of labour relations and for the handling of relations between the various fractions of capital”22_{. This should be seen as deriving}

from the intense competition underpinning the accumulation of capital in a globalising economy marked with technological innovation and, hence, the challenges facing the capitalist system and its classes. Hegemonic agency is solidified through “pre-existing and simultaneously reproduced cultural and political patterns”, he notes23_.

The arrival of Thatcher and Reagan into power in 1979 and 1981, respectively, put an end to the corporate liberalism that had led to economic instability throughout the 1970s and early 1980s when economic growth stumbled and unemployment rocketed in the Atlantic sphere. To Van Der Pijl, this represented a crisis in the hegemony of the ‘compromise’ in place and questioned the adequacy of the Keynesian model of policymaking, both for capital and for the society. According to Gill, this development was precipitated by the changing US perception of its position in the world economy that in turn altered the positions of both Europe and growing Japan. The economic, especially monetary, stability which has come under pressure since the mid-1970s and intensified in the 1980s, the new international division of labour, the

21_{Ibid. p. 272.} 22_{Ibid. p. 31.} 23_{Ibid. pp. 7-8.}

25

globalization of production, exchange, and capital, which was augmented with the liberalisation process, signalled a change in the structure of the global economy24_{. Yet, far from}

meaning a breakup in the circuit of capital accumulation established earlier, these developments signalled further extension to the Pacific region. Such a transformation has strengthened with the growth of the international economic integration pioneered with the rapid capital accumulation by transnational corporations, Gill argues.

In order to restore the cohesion of the Atlantic Ruling Class in the new context of capital circuits of accumulation, Van der Pijl argues that the creation of the Trilateral Commission (TC) in 1973 was inescapable if the interests of the capitalists at the three corners of triad are to be accommodated and secured25_{. The TC has sought to consolidate the weak ties across the}

Atlantic and to reinforce a pattern of Trilateralism. For Gill, the catalyst that pushed for the creation of the TC was the ‘strong opposition’ from Europe and Japan to the US economic and political policies in the early 1970s that harmed the interests of its allies, making the world more dependent on the American market. At the elite level, a lack of congruence between the economic and political spheres existed where the latter became fragmented whereas the former became more integrated. Therefore, the TC came as a response to the needs of both sides; the need of Europe to shield itself in the face of expansionary policies of the USSR and the need for the US to support their TNCs in the global market26.

Largely consistent with Van der Pijl, Gill’s analysis of the emergence of the Atlantic Ruling Class and its extension to the Pacific through the TC goes beyond a temporary reading of these

24 _{Stephen Gill, Atlantic Relations: Beyond the Reagan Era (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989), p. 8.The}

transnationalization of the world economy in the 1970s and 1980s, spurred by the rise and supremacy of the internationally-mobile money-capital has been a consequence of the neoliberalism doctrine domination in the aftermath of the crisis of Keynesianism in the 1970s.

25 _{Van der Pijl, The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class, p. 274}

26 _{The consensus on this strategy between the Americans and Europeans was mainly rested on two important}

interests: protecting the Western European countries against potential threat from the USSR as well as from each other and restoring economic growth and monetary stability through American aid and maintenance of the a system based on US dollar. Ibid.p. 18.

26

developments. He argues that it was set up as a strategic forum to manufacture a “common vision of how the politico-economic world works” and how its problems can be solved27_.

Furthermore, he conceives the establishment of the TC as an attempt to stabilise the political, economic and military structures in the three regions in order to provide the necessary framework for continuous internationalisation of capital and expansion of capitalism. Only the elite of each region can identify their common interests and only then can “complex interdependence’ be managed ˗˗ whether coordination in monetary policies, general macroeconomic policies or in strengthening the role of international organizations like the World Bank, OECD, IMF, and the WTO in achieving economic growth and trade liberalisation28. An institutional structure such as the TC would help in preventing the “communication breakdowns” responsible for the 1970s’ crisis. As stated by Gill, the mandate of the TC would make such an aim possible since it facilitates reaching common approaches to national problems, be it political, economic or military29.

Gill emphasises, as does Van der Pijl, the importance of the historical context within which the relations of Trilateralism were strengthened at the expense of Atlanticism. To him, it was the declining hegemony of the US that gave birth to such transformation in addition to the increased integration of the US into the global economy30_{. In the 1980s, the American Atlantic}

orientation of post-WWII had started to shift towards the Pacific which reflects the shift in economic power towards the Asian region31. The US perceived such economic and political re-steering to be integral to the maintenance of its hegemony at the expense of Europe.

27 _{Stephen Gill, American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission (Cambridge: Cambridge University}

Press, 1990), p. 124.

28_{Ibid. p. 174 and p. 176.} 29_{Ibid. p. 143, and p. 202.} 30_{Ibid. p. 2, p. 12, and p. 14.}

31 _{Gill perceives the policies of the Reagan administration as a return ‘to a series of traditional axioms about the}

international system, in a broad offensive to reassert American ideological, political, economic, and military dominance. In this offensive, the interests of the west European allies were seen as very much as secondary to American prerogatives’. Stephen Gill, Atlantic Relations, p. 26.

27

Nevertheless, that should not blind us, he asserts, from realising the importance of the transnationalisation of capital and its flexible mobility taking place against the background of reduced trade barriers as a result of liberalisation policies engineered by WB, IMF, and GATT32. He points out that developing the formation of the capitalist class along the lines of Trilateralism was an endeavour by the major capitalist states to form “an organic alliance” to serve their dominant interests that involve “a commitment to a more-or-less liberal international economic order”33_{. The period from 1945 to 1971 that saw the development of}

the “transatlantic ruling class” was announced to be over when the US dropped its commitment to the gold standard and with this corporate liberalism was proclaimed dead. This gave way to a new compromise according to which capital flies in a context of which the Atlantic is only a subset34. Van der Pijl contends that such a context forced the state back to be a night-watchman state that intervenes only when the market fails35_.

While within corporate liberalism the interests of the working class were relatively taken into consideration alongside those of the capitalist class as part of the “organic alliance”. The neoliberal doctrine of the new concept of control, money-capital, “was committed to the destruction of the working-class power” in order to overcome the contradiction of the previous

32 _{Stephen Gill, American Hegemony, p. 216.}

33 _{Many members of the Trilateral Commission have served in a high government positions in finance and}

economics, foreign policy, as well as in international institutions, Ibid. p. 2 and p. 4.

34 _{While from 1945 to mid-1970s, transnationalization of capital took the form of capital flows from the US to}

Europe, it has increasingly flown from Europe and Japan to the US since then. Kees Van der Pijl, ‘Restructuring the Atlantic Ruling Class’, in Stephen Gill, eds., Atlantic relations, p. 6. For Gill, the increasing spread of the monetarist-liberal free-market ideas, which reflects the view and interests of the international mobile capital, mainly international banks, on a global scale tend to create the latter’s transnational hegemony and domination over the interests of productive capital and nationalist and mercantilist ‘modes of thought’. Stephen Gill,

American Hegemony, pp. 50-1.

35 _{Neoliberalism was founded on two principal factors: first, monetarism which became ’part of a wider and more}

global process of class formation and elite realignment, second, the minimal role of the state. Kees Van der Pijl, ‘Restructuring the Atlantic Ruling Class’, p. 63 and p. 66.

28

system stemming from compromising with powerful unions in an era of high employment levels36_.

Therefore, with the money-capital concept of control in hegemony, the process of capital accumulation has extended its reach and a new transnational class has started to surface in the late 1980s. As Gill puts it, a ‘transnational’ fraction of capital, as opposed to national capitalist interests, was “developing its hegemony” then and was destined to expand beyond the Triad region due to the globalisation of production and technology. He contends that what cements the hegemony of this fraction goes beyond its complementary material interests and institutions to include a “highly developed consciousness”37_{. Once capitalism transnationalised in finance,}

production and exchange, which was made possible since the 1980s, Gill believes capital penetrates everywhere and creates “webs of international materialist interests”38_{. It is then}

specifically, Robinson argues, that the “Transnationalization of classes and the rise of a TCC” take place39.

This transnational class has interests that are tied to the world economy rather than individual national economies. Big corporations and banks, such as those listed on the Fortune 500, develop their own “transnational networks, partly through business transactions” and partly through their interactions through forums such as the TC and the WEF40. The shared interests that bind them together, and the hegemonic concepts of control they employ, have pushed them to “the centre of an emerging transnational historic bloc, one with a wider leadership than in the era of transatlantic hegemony”. That is, the new bloc includes owners and CEOs of

36_{Ibid. p. 66.}

37 _{Stephen Gill, American Hegemony, pp. 89-90.} 38_{Ibid. p. 30 and pp. 36-7.}

39 _{William I. Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism, pp. 33-4.} 40 _{Stephen Gill, American Hegemony, pp. 89-90.}

29

multinational corporations (MNCs), international bankers, prominent government politicians and bureaucrats from advanced and some developing countries41_.

The new hegemony embodied in the transnational historic bloc, replacing the American one, cannot be sustained without global policy groups, Gill argues. Reconciling any potential conflict between “national and international capital, and associated elements of labour” warrants such a move. For example, the TC can be seen as mechanism of politically controlling market forces and “undertrained anti-Sovietism” in western countries so that they don’t destabilise the emerging transnational hegemony. What’s important here, says Gill, is the acknowledged role of these institutions in facilitating the growth of TNCs and, most importantly, its TCC core and developing its shared identity and consciousness, and the impact this has on its identification of common interests42.

As pointed out by Gill, these developments were concomitant with changes in the structure of state management. The transnationalisation process in the 1970s and 1980s has given more importance to finance and economic departments relative to other divisions “as the competition for foreign capital intensified amid recessionary conditions”. While freeing and empowering