The Formation of Khaleeji Capital

Abstract

A new capitalist class is developing in the Middle East. This new class, Khaleeji Capital, expresses the tendencies of internationalization through all moments of the circuits of capital and operates at a pan-GCC scale. Its internationalization is occurring at the regional scale—i.e., it is a process of internationalization through regionalization. To emphasize once again, however, internationalization should not be understood as delineating a “thing” (e.g., quantities of money, investment flows, or a form of company structure) but rather, conveys the manner in which the circuits of capital are themselves elaborated at the regional scale. The notion of Khaleeji Capital is not meant to imply that the Gulf capital groups no longer identify as “Saudi,” “Kuwaiti,” and so forth. Indeed, these national identities may even become more pronounced as internationalization proceeds. Rather “capital,” as Marx emphasized repeatedly, is a social relation, and the concept of internationalization speaks to the nature of social relations as they form around the circuits of capital within the GCC space. Khaleeji Capital represents a new set of social relations that are developing around pan-GCC accumulation opportunities; they are cotemporaneous with—and are overlaid upon—ongoing structures of national accumulation. These social relations more and more crystallize, articulate, and interpenetrate in a pan-GCC space. Consequently, accumulation is increasingly conceived at the regional scale rather than through a nationally bound perspective.