SOC433H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Corporate Capitalism, Subnetwork, Global Brain
Carroll: Canada’s Carbon- capital elite: a tangled web of corporate power
Abstract
• maps the organization of corporate power in a carbon-capital elite, centered in Calgary,
whose reach extends nationally and transnationally.
• identifies a tightly-knit, local network of mid-sized carbon-capital firms, linked into the
broader power structure largely through mediating relations involving the largest carbon-
capital corporations.
• Both policy sociology and public sociology can contribute toward checking its power
through effective regulation while facilitating discussion of energy democracy as a
transformative alternative.
Introduction
• as climate crisis has become widely recognized as the most urgent problem facing
humankind, the Canadian economy has become centered upon carbon extraction as a core
industry.
• Canada’s economy has come to be focused significantly around carbon extraction.
• Carbon-capital operations generate revenue for corporations, royalties for petro-states and
escalating emissions, but offer few jobs to working people.
• the entrenched power of carbon capital is increasingly at odds with a growing global
consciousness about the deepening climate crisis, informing tentative steps toward
corralling global carbon emissions within an evidence-based carbon budget, and
ultimately questioning “fossil capital” as the centerpiece of economic life
• In the same period that the carbon-extractive sector came to dominate Canada’s industrial
economy, the closely tied issues of concentrated corporate power and growing economic
inequality gained salience.
• concentration of corporate capital has closely tracked concentration of income in the
hands of an elite few, producing an “unprecedented concentration of both income and
corporate power
• The neoliberal “freeing” of markets through deregulating capital, privatizing public assets
and eroding the tax base for public initiatives has reinforced capitalism’s tendencies
toward oligarchy.
• Democratic organizations operate on the principle of one member, one vote, but in
corporations each share provides a vote to its owner.
• Since share owner- ship is concentrated among a few major shareholders these interests
elect the board of directors which appoints senior management.
• In this way, the vast majority of shareholders are disenfranchised, as corporate power is
concentrated not only within a relative few companies but among the major shareholders,
directors and executives of those companies.
• in contrast to the notion that Canadian capitalism comprises a free-market system, it is
not unusual for corporate directorates to be interlocked, i.e., for large corporations to
share the same directors (and sometimes executives).
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• Elite extra-market relations among the largest companies create the basis for a “corporate
community”
• The well-connected networkers at the center comprise an “inner circle,” further
concentrating corporate power within the dominant stratum of the capitalist class.
o diverge sharply from the fictional narrative of firms isolated from and in
competition with each other.
• Directorate interlocks provide a structural basis for communication, coordination, and
social cohesion, enabling the corporate community to de ne and pursue its common
interests in maintaining the status quo of concentrated corporate power
The carbon capital elite
• Corporate community, corporate elite, inner circle and dominant stratum are terms that ag
the enormous concentration of power in a relatively small group of business leaders – the
result of a combination of economic concentration, concentration of share ownership, and
elite social networking.
• there is a strong co-dependency between fossil-fuel corporations and the financial sector.
• corporate power over carbon extraction and processing is closely tied to corporate power
in financing those activities
The carbon capitals elite’s accumulation base
• a fundamental structuring condition in corporate capitalism is extreme disparities in the
distribution of capital across rms.
• Generally, economic sectors, national economies and the global economy are dominated
by a few large companies, concentrating corporate power in the hands of their owners,
directors and executives.
• The carbon-capital elite is shaped by a geography of accumulation. Car- bon capital
clusters spatially, around centers of strategic command.
o Situated close together
o Most in Calgary
• Very few firms not invested in Western Canada are active elsewhere in Canada, and
seven of these 11 are also invested in the US
• many Canadian carbon-capital corporations center their activities in western provinces,
but some companies’ investments span the globe.
• This reinforces the dominance of Calgary as the command center for most corporate head
offices.
Social organization of the carbon capital elite
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• Looks at whether elite interlocking within the carbon-capital sector provides a basis for a
corporate community: whether the network is integrated or fragmented into many
disconnected pieces.
• the question is not simply whether firms interlock with other corporations, but whether
their neighbors interlock with each other,
• the neighborhoods of carbon-capital firms overlap, constituting a single network.
• Over- all, the network is quite sparse (as large networks typically are); yet this does not
preclude the possibility of relatively dense subnetworks
• Any network is composed of points (or nodes) and lines (or edges).
• The nodes are characteristically organized along a dimension of centrality: some are
positioned at or near the network’s core; others are on its margins.
• The most basic index of centrality is degree, which in this case is simply the number
companies with which a given corporation is interlocked.
• a measure of centrality that takes into account how central one’s neighbors in the network
are is: the total number of firms to which a given company is tied either directly or at one
remove
• Degree and two-step degree can illuminate whether and how Canada’s carbon-capital
companies form a distinct corporate com- munity.
Concentration of capital and network structure
• carbon capital is highly concentrated,
• degree can be decomposed into internal and external components.
• Internal degree refers to the number of firms in the same sector with which a firm
interlock;
• external degree refers to the number of firms in other sectors with which the same firm
interlocks.
• The carbon-capital network appears as a two-tiered formation, divided between majors
and mid-sized firms.
• The latter form the backbone of a cohesive local elite; the former play a mediating role
between mid-sized, local firms and extra-local corporate communities.
• majors invested in oil and gas and with deep roots in Canada’s capitalist class do
participate in the carbon-capital subnetwork, though not to the exclusion of their broader
networking.
o They play a mediating role in networking both within the local, Calgary-based
community and beyond it.
The core of the carbon capital corporate community
• the carbon-capital community is organized around a dense core.
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Carroll: canada"s carbon- capital elite: a tangled web of corporate power. Since share owner- ship is concentrated among a few major shareholders these interests elect the board of directors which appoints senior management. The carbon capitals elite"s accumulation base: a fundamental structuring condition in corporate capitalism is extreme disparities in the distribution of capital across rms. Generally, economic sectors, national economies and the global economy are dominated by a few large companies, concentrating corporate power in the hands of their owners, directors and executives: the carbon-capital elite is shaped by a geography of accumulation. Concentration of capital and network structure: carbon capital is highly concentrated, degree can be decomposed into internal and external components. On the other hand, integrated producers and coal com- panies, and companies that provide services to extraction but do not control land, are largely absent from the network"s core.
