The State and the Contemporary World-Economy

Abstract

The evolution of late capitalism, as outlined in the preceding chapter, has concentrated and centralised economic power at a world scale into a small number of multinational conglomerates. Most of these conglomerates are much larger than the majority of the world’s countries, if one compares, for example, assets controlled against national wealth or annual turnover against gross national product. Thus the major capitalist enterprises are among the most important actors in the contemporary world-economy.