Jerry Harris

Global Studies Association of North America · National Secretary

Columns one through four on global capitalism.

The author gives a Gramscian analysis of historic blocs in the US, analyses the current political situation in the US as a struggle between two hegemonic projects, and looks in detail at Project 2025 -- a road map for a new Trump administration

Harris, one of the originators of transnational capitalist class analysis, explains it application to current world events.

Among the mainstream press, western political elites and sections of the Left, China is accused of exploiting the Global South and even being an imperialist power. China argues it is pursuing a ‘win-win’ policy. To explore this question, this article looks at several factors, including labour exploitation, debt, environmental damage and military ac...

As multi-polarity grows, there are some who see this as a new stage of non-alignment, and even the creation of an anti-imperialist bloc. But the economic and political elites of the Global South are too deeply tied to transnational capitalism to be truly independent. Instead, multi-polarity is a struggle within global capitalism for a larger share...

Independence and self-determination have been a guiding socialist principle for over 100 years. It marks a fundamental dividing line between Marxism and various schools of imperialist thought including the realist, neoconservatives, and liberal interventionists.

Lenin y otros destacados marxistas analizaron el imperialismo hace más de 100 años. Aunque algunos elementos fundamentales permanecen, la globalización ha desarrollado nuevas características críticas, dando lugar a la aparición de una clase capitalista transnacional, a nuevas relaciones entre capital y trabajo, y al uso de tecnologías que han revol...

Lenin y otros destacados marxistas analizaron el imperialismo hace más de 100 años. Aunque algunos elementos fundamentales permanecen, la globalización ha desarrollado nuevas características críticas, dando lugar a la aparición de una clase capitalista transnacional, a nuevas relaciones entre capital y trabajo, y al uso de tecnologías que han revol...

Neoliberalism and evangelical theocrats want to create an authoritarian capitalism that maintains a political, social, and environmental dictatorship. Green capitalism offers only limited change unable to solve the environmental crisis. Building alternative hegemony around a Green New Deal will be the best oppositional force to ecofascism.

Globalization brought about important changes to global capitalism, many still not fully reflected in Left analysis and thinking. Capitalism has gone through a number of eras, from mercantilism, colonialism, imperialism to globalization. Throughout this history the fundamental logic of the system has remained. But the ways in which it unfolds and i...

Book Review

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a powerful assertion of geopolitical power and conflict. But Russia’s nationalist and expansionary drive takes place within the context of transnational economic ties. Such ties help define the nature of the war, and both the Russian and western response. The contradictory pressures of nationalist desires conflict...

Civil society and democratic rights resulted from a revolutionary compromise between the popular masses and rising capitalist class. This class alliance, which overthrew the aristocratic state in France and the colonial state in North America, produced a dialectic between property rights and human rights, constantly in contradiction and tension, bu...

Ukraine has once again exploded into contention between Russia and the West. Where should the Left stand in this conflict? More importantly, caught between East and West, how can Ukraine resolve its internal problems based on its independence and self-determination? To understand today's situation, we need to start with a bit of history. In 1654 si...

The dialectic between property rights and human rights has its origins in the revolutionary ideology and class alliances that drove the American, French and Russian revolutions. Civil society as a place for political engagement was a concession by the capitalists to the working class and masses who participated in winning these revolutions. This co...

As the global pandemic accelerates economic problems, divisions over global capitalism have sharpened. This includes those who want to delink the US/China relationship, those who wish to recalibrate but maintain the transnational system, and China’s own more assertive strategy as its economic power increases. These debates affect national and world...

Facing a crisis of legitimacy, the capitalist class is constructing new hegemonic projects to stabilize their global system. This article will examine competing fractions of the transnational capitalist class (TCC), how these fractions are confronting the crisis of global capitalism, and how TCC theory analyzes the current state of conflict. TCC th...

The experience of Syd Harris as an international volunteer in the Spanish Civil War.

Book Review

Book Review of William Robinson's latest work.

Although the trade war between China and the US has aspects of a national rivalry, at a deeper level it is a struggle over different forms of globalisation. The Chinese and US economies are deeply integrated, but the economic crisis of 2008 caused a delegitimisation of neoliberalism. The transnational capitalist class is seeking to build new hegemo...

The text is an introduction to the symposium on “Future of Globalization?” for International Critical Thought. It includes a selection of four articles developed after their presentation at the 2019 conference of the Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism in Beijing, written by scholars from China, Czech Republic, UK and USA, focusing on...

Book review of Race & Class editor Liz Fekete's book on right-wing populism and racist movements

Book review of Jeb Sprague's new work on global capitalism in the Caribbean

Este artigo está licenciado sob forma de uma licença Creative Commons Atribuição 4.0 Internacional, que permite uso irrestrito, distribuição e reprodução em qualquer meio, desde que a publicação original seja corretamente citada. Abstract: Over the past decade, China has made a spectacular leap to become the leading user and manufacturer of wind an...

Over the past decade, China has made a spectacular leap to become the leading user and manufacturer of wind and solar power. However their commitment to fossil fuel still outweighs renewable energy. The article will trace the growth of clean energy and the coal and oil industry, in China’s internal market as well as their global investments. It wil...

Book review.

Global capitalism is visibly showing up unacceptable inequalities and social contradictions. Three camps have emerged in the ruling class in response to over-accumulation, poverty, middle-class stagnation and environmental crisis: inclusive capitalism; militarised accumulation; the Green New Deal. All fractions adhere to neoliberal principles. Incl...

Edited By Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Immanuel Ness (London: Pluto Press, 2018), 272 pp. Paper. Choke Points shines a light on one of the most important aspects of globalization, the worldwide web of logistics, the transformation of labor, and the new relations of production. But the book goes beyond an analysis and description of working conditions...

This article examines the relationship of race and class using the lens of working-class experiences inside the US steel and auto industries. It focuses on the applicability of white skin privilege to the conditions of labor, and introduces the concept of comparative forms of oppression. Additionally, it considerations white skin privilege from the...

China’s engagement with global capitalism is driven by the emergence of a statist and private transnational capitalist class. Nevertheless, aspects of China’s foreign policy from the Maoist period still echo today. Consequently, elements of third world solidarity and opposition to Western domination continue to exist as China’s past is redefined to...

The idea that China, once the center of world revolutionary passion, should lead global capitalism is as unexpected as it is ironic. But the emergence of the transnational capitalist class (TCC) has promoted a multi-centric world order where “everything solid melts into air.” Disappearing is the dominant position of the US, further undercut by the...

The election of Donald Trump reflects the rise of a Right-wing nationalist movement. Central to Trump’s appeal has been his advocacy of anti-immigrant, racist, and misogynist ideas. At its core, his ruling power bloc consists of neo-liberal fundamentalists, the religious Right, and white nationalists. There are similarities between the new power bl...

Capitalism has undergone a number of important transformations and challenges. Within the West, capitalism responded to these problems with Keynesian solutions, creating an expanded social contract and growing middle class. But alongside its triumphalism with the fall of the Soviet Union, capitalism was reaching its own limits of expansion within t...

Problems of social transformations and revolutions belong to the classical agenda of social inquiry, as well as to the most prominent challenges encountered by contemporary societies. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Soviet collapse of socialism prompts a timely reflection on the significant transformations and revolutions which took place since...

The chapter covers transnational production and finance as the basis for development of a transnational capitalist class. It also reviews the remaking of the working class to fit the new patterns of accumulation and production. Lastly it investigates major trade deals, including NAFTA and the TPP.

Both nationalist and globalist economic and political forces clash in the civil war in Ukraine.

Important sectors of the transnational capitalist class have realized that the environmental crisis is real and are preparing to meet the challenge. But their plans do not depart from neo-liberalism, and so progressives and the left have an essential role to play in the fight for a sustainable future.

The revolution in information technologies has brought about a fundamental shift in the productive forces. It has become the organising tool of the transnational capitalist class in their drive to global financialisation and production. In important areas information technology has radically reduced the socially necessary labour time to produce gre...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how capitalism has developed into a deeply integrative economic system of financial investments and manufacturing. This process of globalization has brought about the emergence of a transnational capitalist class that rules the world’s economy. Financialization, created by the speed and interconnect...

Within studies of global capitalism class formation is analyzed from two different viewpoints: network theory and political economy. The principal factor determining the emergence of a transnational capitalist class (TCC) is the relations of production. The questions of how production and labor are organized, and how and by whom value is expropriat...

In this interview, Roberto Regalado discusses changes in Cuba, influences of the Soviet model, and the need for alternative forms of democratic development. He offers an overview on the history of Latin American revolutionary efforts, the new social movements, and their political impact on the thinking of traditional left parties. Regalado also ref...

Marxists and radical environmentalists have argued that the never ending drive for expanded accumulation and production is the fundamental reason that capitalism can never solve the environmental crisis, and in effect can only make the crisis more severe. Promoters of green capitalism also focus on the growth cycle of capitalism, but argue that new...

Transnational capitalist class (TCC) theory has established a clear set of economic practices that have laid the basis for class formation on a global scale. Less clear is the relationship of the TCC to national states, the military (particularly the US superpower), and what constitutes transnational political practices. The author argues that the...

The UAE and Qatar have been consciously constructed as specialised geographic zones for the global elite and transnational capitalism. Never undergoing a historic bourgeois democratic period and lacking citizenship rights for the large majority of their residents, the UAE and Qatar are not modern nation states. Nevertheless, the Gulf aristocracy is...

Democracy and economic rights developed as part of capitalism because of the historic struggles of the working class and poor. Consequently the social contract became an important element in maintaining the legitimacy of the system. But globalization has freed the transnational capitalist class from its historic national commitments. Instead we see...

The report details presentations at the tenth annual Global Studies Association conference at the University of Victoria in Canada. Papers cover a wide range of topics including: the political economy of transnational capitalism; environmental challenges; new social movements; the Arab Spring and discussions on universal human rights. Presenters in...

This article explores the development of statist transnational capitalism in China by examining the economic activity of large state-owned economic units in energy, finance and manufacturing and their relationship to other transnational capitalists through links in foreign direct investment, joint ventures and stock investments. It also analyses th...

Globalization has led to world spanning corporations competing to become the dominant monopoly in their areas of economic interests. This competitive struggle is carried out by the transnational capitalist class rather than states backing national champions, and reflects the changing character of capitalism. The drive to create a seamless world sys...

Sustainable energy use is rapidly developing, often accompanied by state support and patriotic political rhetoric. But the solar and wind energy industries are highly transnationalised and already inserted into global patterns of accumulation. This article argues that, while possibly resolving some of the most pressing conflicts between capitalism...

A key point in the history of the Communist Party USA occurred in events surrounding the 16th National Convention, in 1957 and 1958. During this period a struggle over the political and organizational direction of the Party erupted, resulting in a reduced and weakened organization. Most historians give priority to the split between the right and le...

Although the world economic crisis has slowed the flow of global investments and production, transnational capitalism has become more centralized through greater monopolization. We can trace this development in the auto industry with an examination of state intervention, transnational alliances and global competition. Far from developing a nation-c...

Over the last few years a number of developing countries have emerged as global economic powers. This resulted from a rise in oil and commodity prices, foreign direct investments and a global shift in production. Much of this growth has been guided by governments and under the control of state corporations leading to the phenomenon of statist globa...

Barack Obama's election as US president marks a historic cultural shift in US political life, and is a major victory for progressive forces. But what is the nature of the broad-based alliance that placed him in the White House, how was it forged and from what did it derive its strength? The global economic crisis has shockingly exposed the bankrupt...

The failure of its occupation of Iraq has provoked deep divisions among the US ruling elite over the future of foreign policy. The unilateralism promoted by the neoconservatives has been discredited, yet it is unclear whether the post-Bush era will be dominated by the `realists' or the `globalists', each of whom advocate different pathways for US i...

With the invasion of Iraq there is renewed discussion on the character of US imperialism and the Atlantic relationship. Many see the United States as the dominant world power with hegemony in economic, military and cultural affairs. Others argue that the relative decline of US economic strength and opposition to the occupation of Iraq indicate grow...

The beginning of the twenty-first century has witnessed the rise of exciting new revolutionary movements against capitalist globalisation. They are characterised, in Latin America particularly, by qualitatively different strategies from the socialist movements of the last century. Rather than vanguard parties leading a Leninist insurrection or Maoi...

China’s tremendous economic growth over the last two decades has begun a historic shift away from the economic dominance of the West that is the subject of much commentary and debate. Far less known is the impact on Chinese workers themselves, who are frequently denied the rights laid down in labour laws and also lack the protection of public healt...

The Christian Right is an increasingly powerful phenomenon in US politics. Extremely influential in the current administration, it has been building a mass base across the nation. This analysis of a movement that has been growing over the past four decades reveals the complex interrelationships between its different strands, their reach into the ma...

The defining dialectic in the world today is the contradiction between nation-centric forms of capitalist accumulation and the rapidly developing transnational system of production. These two forms of capitalism contain class interests connected to the benefits, oppression and institutional structures that arise out of the relations of production i...

China, India and Brazil have become world economic powers; they are attempting to harness the forces of globalisation so as to strengthen their international standing in multilateral institutions like the WTO. Theirs is not a surrender to imperialism, but an attempt to build a bulwark against it, from which they can implement their own national str...

Dans cet article, l'A se penche les effets de la mondialisation au niveau de la fonction et du role des forces armees americaines. L'A revient ici sur les implications du 11 septembre, mais aussi sur le programme et les conceptions de l'administration Bush. Il est egalement question de la place de l'industrie de l'armement au niveau national mais a...

We would like to thank Gioconda Robinson and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this essay. ABSTRACT: A transnational capitalist class (TCC) has emerged as that segment of the world bourgeoisie that represents transnational capital, the owners of the leading worldwide means of production as embodied in the transnational...

Information technology (IT) has laid the foundation for global capitalism. It's the electronic skeleton through which globalization works, connecting every performing part of the world economy. The power and reach of every transnational depends on products from IT companies, and IT corporate leaders are a key sector within the global capitalist cla...

In the early 1970s U.S. capitalism began to suffer a deepening crisis of accumulation. This crisis sprang from the very heart of the modern industrial system, arising out of fundamental contradictions in its exploitation of labor and its conditions of production. But this crisis also occurred along side a postmodern revolution in microelectronics a...