Corporate Power and Canadian Capitalism

Challenging standard dependency theory, William Carroll argues fromempirical evidence that Canada’s financial-industrial elite havemaintained and consolidated their competitive position at the centre ofan inter-corporate network. Corporate Power and CanadianCapitalism thus acknowledges the unusually high degree to whichcapital is concentrated in a relatively few giant corporations inCanada, but it denies that these commercial interests are subordinatedto American corporate capital.

To test the validity of this new perspective on the transformationof indigenous capitalists into a national bourgeoisie, Carroll tracesthe accumulation of capital in the largest Canadian corporations andthe institutional relations that have existed among the same firmssince World War II. Instead of selling out to foreign capital, Canadianfirms have in fact become increasingly interlocked, andCanadian-controlled firms have been and continue to be the focus ofboth the industrial and financial sectors, with foreign-controlledcompanies occupying decidedly peripheral positions.

From this interpretative position, Canada’s development is seenas markedly similar to that of other advanced capitalist countries,culminating in consolidation of control under an elite accompanied bothby penetration of foreign economies by domestic financial capitalistsand a concomitant penetration of the domestic economy by foreigncapital.