From Daniel Gross's review of Mark S. Mizruchi's "The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite" in the latest Bookforum:
"But Mizruchi really whiffs on the phenomenon of that has transformed corporate life in the past fifty years of globalization. The expansion of trade and the continual opening of new markets has really changed what it means to be a large corporation, and what it means to run one. The typical member of the S&P 500 gets about half of its revenues from overseas operations. For America's largest companies--organizations like McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Intel, Microsoft, Boeing--the proportion is closer to 80 percent. That wasn't the case in the '50s. What's more, virtually all the growth that big companies have seen in recent years has come via international expansion. Many of our iconic firms are American in name and heritage only." Karl Marx, V. 3 of Capital, Chapter 14, “Counteracting Influences” "Capitals invested in foreign trade can yield a higher rate of profit, because, in the first place, there is competition with commodities produced in other countries with inferior production facilities, so that the more advanced country sells its goods above their value even though cheaper than the competing countries. In so far as the labour of the more advanced country is here realised as labour of a higher specific weight, the rate of profit rises, because labour which has not been paid as being of a higher quality is sold as such. "Just as a manufacturer who employs a new invention before it becomes generally used, undersells his competitors and yet sells his commodity above its individual value, that is, realises the specifically higher productiveness of the labour he employs as surplus-labour. He thus secures a surplus-profit. As concerns capitals invested in colonies, etc., on the other hand, they may yield higher rates of profit for the simple reason that the rate of profit is higher there due to backward development, and likewise the exploitation of labour, because of the use of slaves, coolies, etc." _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
