Does Disorganized Capitalism Disorganize Corporate Networks?

This paper explores how three developments associated with capitalist disorganization reshaped Canadian corporate network between 1976 and 1996: 1/transnationlization of capital, 2/ deregulation of financial sector, and 3/reforms of community's corporate governance norms. Although network became sparser and carried more by outside directors, distinctive pattern of transnational investment did not in itself disorganize it. Instead, network's center of gravity shifted toward domestic interests operating on a transnational scale and interlocked mainly through outside directorships. The main sources for loosening of intercorporate ties were financial-sector deregulation and especially corporate governance reforms. Transnational corporations now form center of a sparser and looser network of information flows. In disorganized capitalism, relation between banks and corporations becomes more episodically enacted and old nationally-organized axis of finance capital fades--particularly as new governance norms deter bankers from sitting on corporate boards. A looser, more globalized network suits new relation between finance and industry. Resume: Cet article nous montre comment trois developpments, qui sont associes a la desorganisation capitaliste, ont remodele le reseau canadien des entreprises entre 1976 et 1996 : 1/la transnationalisation du capital, 2/la deregulation du secteur financier, et 3/ les reformes des normes de controle de la communaute des entreprises de commerce. Bien que le reseau devint plus clairseme et qu'il fut davantage soutenu parles directeurs extemes, la physionomie distincte d'investissement trans-national, en elle-meme, ne le > pas. Au contraire, le centre de gravite du reseau se touma vers des interets nationaux qui fonctionnaient sur une echelle trans-nationale et qui etaient principalement imbriques par l'ensemble des directeurs externes. Les principales sources de l'assouplissement des liens interentreprises etaient la deregulation du secteur financier et surtout les reformes du controle des entreprises. Lesentreprises trans-nationales constituent desormais lecentre d'un reseau de flux d'informat ions plus clairseme et plus assoupli. En capitalisme desorganise, la relation entre les banques et les entreprises s'etablit mains souvent, et le viell axe national du capital financier s'affaiblit--surtout lorsque des nouvelles normes de controle dissuadent les banquiers de sieger au sein des conseils d'entrepnse. Un reseau mains tendu et davantage globalise convient a Ia nouvelle relation entre la finance et I'industrie. ********** One of most important political-economic transformations in closing decades of twentieth century was what Lash and Urry (1987) have called the end of organized capitalism--the uneven transition in world system' s center from a capitalism more or less structured around national corporate economies regulated by national states to a more globalized capitalism subject to less effective national regulation. The end of nationally organized capitalism is, of course, only one side of a reorganization of capital into a more globalized field of accumulation, within which policies of particular states are disciplined both by threat of capital strikes and by neoliberal norms enforced by institutions such as World Trade Organization (Teeple, 2000; Robinson and Harris, 2000). Lash and Urry (pp. 5-6) include an array of structural and cultural changes under rubric of this transition. Our focus here is upon social network that is formed when directors of large corporations sit on multipl e directorates. Corporate networks have knit leading companies and capitalists of each national economy into more or less coherent structures of economic power, and although they do not in any sense underwrite a class conspiracy they have enabled coordination and direction of capital accumulation across certain interlocked firms while promoting formation of a solidaristic business community within capitalist class's top tier. …