Global Establishmentism in Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

Networks of private and public elites, or ‘establishments’, have been constructed in national political economies across the world. These national establishments, in turn, have become more transnational in their structure and processes. Increasingly, the establishments of the North have meshed with each other across national borders, ratcheted their power up to the global level, and drawn the establishments of the South into their fold. In brief, a single Global Establishment has emerged, which links the economic and political elites of developed capitalist countries and those of underdeveloped capitalist countries into a web of mutual benefit. This integration, however, has been of dubious benefit to the nonestablished.

It will take more than simple modifications in investment arrangements.... It will take nothing short of a revolution in the way we organize economic activity.

(Sixto Roxas, chairman of the board of the Asian Institute of Management and president of the Bancom Development Corporation of Manila. 1978:70)