The Transnational Capitalist Class

by Leslie Sklair

The Transnational Capitalist Class provides theoretically informed empirical research to explain the process of globalization from the viewpoint of the corporations themselves. Through personal interviews with executives and managers from over eighty Fortune Global 500 corporations, Sklair demonstrates how globalization works from the perspective of those who control and oppose the major globalizing corporations and their allies in government and the media. Sklair's unique approach brings a fresh perspective to what has become a key debate of our time.

Genres: Economics, Sociology, Class, Politics

351 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Elruin Elmsroot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its real value is not simply explaining globalization, but asking who actually operates the system it creates. Sklair shifts attention from countries and corporations as isolated actors toward transnational networks of executives, institutions, capital, and consumer culture. The strongest insight is that power increasingly works through relationships and structures rather than identifiable elites. Some theory feels dated and repetitive, but the framework remains useful for reading global capitalism as an architecture of power rather than merely a system of trade.

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even if read in skimming, this is a book that goes really deep, is well referenced, and,at the end, isn't even too difficult to read. It consists of short, well organized and up-to-the-point chapters and sub-chapters.

As of the idea, anyone who's been thinking how little certain terms of modern economics, management, etc. (that are aimed at a new globalized world) really make sense - well, this is the book! Through a lot of deep research, Sklair explains how the current mantra of "lean production", for example, really just creates corporate members around the world, that belong to the same global culture. It is an extremely inportant work on globalization, as it presents the perspective of culture, and presents an idea of what the future might hold.

When you think how managers and their workers in the big TNCs both in Japan and the United States, for example, are teached to learn the same new ideas of the corpotative world, you get the idea, and how this creates a new global class.