(15691497 - Perspectives On Global Development and Technology) Global Capitalism and Transnational Class Conflict

Perspectives on Global Development PERSPECTIVES
ON GLOBAL
DEVELOPMENT
and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477 AND
TEC HNOLOGY
brill.com/pgdt
Global Capitalism and Transnational Class Conflict

Jerry Harris
Global Studies Association of North America, Chicago, Illinois
gharris234@comcast.net
Abstract
Integrated global capitalism has emerged over the past forty years as the dominant eco-
nomic system. This world system was constructed by the transnational capitalist class,
which established hegemonic political and cultural power in both the Global North
and South. Nevertheless, competition and contradictions characterize global capital-
ism, within and between classes as well as nation states.
Keywords
authoritarian capitalism – climate change – green capitalism – hegemonic blocs –

policy groups
1 Introduction
Capitalism has always had a global impulse built into its fundamental need
for markets and resources. The vast connections of trade, production, finan-
cial flows, and extraction have extended and deepened as the system matured.
From the early mercantile days of the Hanseatic League, to colonial Spain,
imperialist Britain, and contemporary globalization there has been a constant
push to expand the exploitation of labor and the environment. Today global
capitalism is a closely woven, integrated world system, no longer a collection
of nation states serving their own internal economies. Not only has money
flooded across borders, but culture, ideas, and images flow worldwide on the
electronic pathways of media and information technologies.
Let’s start with a bit of history as told by Marx and Engels (1848) in The
Communist Manifesto.
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454 Harris
The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given
a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every
country…. it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national
ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have
been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new
industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all
civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw
material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries
whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter
of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the
country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products
of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclu-
sion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal
inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual
production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become com-
mon property. National one-sidedness and narrowmindedness become
more and more impossible … (p. 16).
Written in 1848 the passage still describes the world in 2022. But the changes
that Marx and Engels articulated have grown deeper, wider, and more embed-
ded. These transformations not only affected the character of the working
class, remaking and reconfiguring its composition with each successive devel-
opment (Silver 2003), but also the capitalist class itself. The capitalist class
of Henry Ford and Fredrick Taylor in 1920 is not the same capitalist class of
Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates in 2020. The logic is the same, as are the
principals of capitalist accumulation, but the ways and means that these prin-
cipals are realized have changed.
We can explore this development by looking at the differences between
the international system of industrial production in much of the twentieth
century, and the current transnational system of production and finance.
The international economy was built around national capitalist states that
competed with each other and promoted their own corporate champions.
Countries in the Global South were mainly used for resource extraction and
cheap labor, while value-added production took place in the home country of
the imperialist powers. National borders protected home-based production,
and eventually provided the flexibility for a Keynesian social contract. There
was a large amount of international trade and competition, but this mainly
took place between finished national products that competed for markets
through exports. In the first stage, imperialist countries fought over foreign
territorial control and markets that resulted in WWI and WWII. Reacting to the
Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Global Capitalism and Transnational Class Conflict 455
post-1945 wave of national liberation, imperialism adjusted its control through

financial debt and the power to set the international price for commodities.
The US State led as the hegemonic power based on its military and economic
strength, and directed the West in the fight against various socialist countries
and developmental states in the Third World.
The transnational system of global capitalism emerged as the capitalist
class reacted to structural stagnation; a crisis over the falling rate of profits
brought on by Keynesian compromises, and what was deemed by the capitalist
class as an unfavorable division of value between labor and capital. Needing
to break-out of the financial and productive restrictions imposed by national
borders, the capitalist class reengineered the relations of production. This
transformation was spurred on by the revolution in information and commu-
nication technologies (ICT) whose development coincided with the need to
redesign the economic system.
Major new features that emerged were the predominance of global accu-
mulation over the circulation of national capital; massive amounts of foreign
direct investments; cross-border stock markets; world-wide speculative finan-
cial markets; cross-border mergers and acquisitions; the transnationalization
of corporate boards; greater concentration of power in transnational corpora-
tions (TNCs) and world-spanning financial institutions; global assembly lines;
intra-firm trade; subcontracting and global subsidiaries; joint research and
development; the opening of China, Russia, and Eastern Europe as sites for
global accumulation and labor; the precariatization of work; networked logis-
tics for the movement of commodities; global cities; global media; tourism;
tax havens; global real estate holdings for the wealthy; empowering transna-
tional governance bodies such as the WTO and IMF; and hegemonic blocs
of transnational capitalists taking state power in both the North and South.
These changes took place under the control and direction of an emerging and
consolidating transnational capitalist class (TCC). Their common project was
to construct a borderless capitalist system for production and financial flows,
and neoliberalism became its policy modus operandi. Differences over how
this should be carried out always existed, and have sharpened with each pro-
ceeding crisis. Moreover, China’s rise has added to the complexity and tensions
(Carroll 2010; Harris 2016; Robinson 2004; Sklair 2001).
The transnational system faces challenges from within and without. Every
day throughout the world the habits, institutions, and privileges rooted in
nation-centric societies clash with the relations built by global capitalism. The
balance of forces between the class interests of the old and new determines
the structures of the contemporary world. A historic dialectic links the nation-
centric and transnational systems, each defining the characteristics of the

456 Harris
other in a battle for hegemony. Political and economic struggles, attacks, and
responses are continually changing the landscape. While the TCC has formed
a hegemonic bloc that dominates smaller, nationally based capitalists and
determines the relationship between labor and capital, they don’t win every
political battle. Unexpected crises can also undermine both economic and cul-
tural globalization. The COVID-19 pandemic, by its disruption of production,
interruption of world logistics and travel, and the resulting stock market crash,
has shown just how tightly interwoven and porous human society is.
Struggles between the working class and other social sectors with the TCC is
an ongoing challenge to global capitalism. The working class battles to main-
tain the Keynesian social contract while the TCC fights to undermine it through
austerity, undercutting labor laws, outsourcing, temp work, flexibility, and the
general conditions of precariatization. In some instances, there are struggles to
extend the social contract, as with the fight for universal health care in the US.
How these struggles play out, what is lost, maintained, or won shapes the
social contours of the new system. And as we’ve witnessed, there is no prede-
termined anti-capitalist wave of political activity by the working class. Much
of their frustration, anger, and fear has been captured by reactionary national-
ist movements that threaten aspects of globalization. The Brexit movement
flourished in the language and imagery of regaining national sovereignty and
cultural purity. The problem for the Left is to create new organizational forms
and goals that can tap into the social guarantees of the Keynesian era, and,
more importantly, move beyond with a contemporary vision for a just society
based on human solidarity.
The TCC not only faces resistance from below, but is riven with splits within
their own ranks. Such divisions began to appear with the 1998 crisis in Asia
when a spectacular amount of speculative money fled Thailand, Malaysia,
Indonesia, South Korea, and the Philippines. The International Monetary
Fund (IMF) was quick to enforce austerity and privatization as conditions
for economic relief. The human suffering was great and led some economists
such as Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, and Jeffery Sachs to break with neo-
liberal dogma. Other leading intellectuals like Lawrence Summers began to
advocate for greater structural oversight of global free markets, while much
of the financial industry continued to defend a libertarian and fundamentalist
view of open borders and free financial flows (Robinson and Harris 2000). The
struggle between capitalist class factions, as well as the working class and TCC,
are evident in policy decisions within state institutions. These reflect existing
class power relations within and between classes. The result is a contradic-
tory process that manifests an ever-changing balance of power, so even for a
hegemonic faction consolidation is often two steps forward and one step back.

The Great Recession of 2008 deepened these pre-existing differences, but

also produced a new field of political responses. Because the 2008 crash was
so profound the hegemony of neoliberal ideology faced a crisis of legitimacy.
Both conservative and liberal parties that supported globalization throughout
Europe and the US have lost large sections of their popular base. As politics
shift to the left and right, the TCC has begun a search for a post-neoliberal con-
figuration, one that can stabilize global capitalism and stimulate a new round
of accumulation.
To be sure neoliberalism still has widespread support among many in the
global ruling class. It’s what Krugman calls “zombie economics,” ideas that
live on long after their proven failure. Some have rallied around what they
call “inclusive capitalism,” a weak attempt to recognize the vast inequalities
that neoliberalism has engendered, proposing mild reformism coupled with
speeches that express great moral concern, much like the band that played on
to calm nerves as the Titanic sank.
But new political dynamics are causing others to seek more radical
solutions, forming distinctly different hegemonic projects to save global capi-
talism. These are authoritarian capitalism based on militarized and repressive
accumulation, and green capitalism based on the many new environmental
technologies. Below we examine how the TCC is reacting to the current state
of global capitalism, and the conflicting class factions fighting to lead the
world system.
2 Two Hegemonic Projects Compete for Leadership
William I. Robinson (2018) describes the development of the reactionary trans-

national bloc in the following passage, “There is a convergence around global
capitalism’s political need for social control and repression and its economic
need to perpetuate accumulation in the face of stagnation” (p. 5). He terms this
“militarised accumulation,” or accumulation by repression based in the “devel-
opment and deployment of systems of warfare, social control, and repression”
(p. 8). The war on terror, the privatization of armed forces, immigrant intern-
ment camps, and the growth of security state surveillance are elements around
which profits are organized and political movements mobilized. For a faction
of the TCC this is the best strategy to repress rebellions from below, split the
working class with appeals to nationalism and white identity, and create politi-
cal and social stability for global capitalism.
This power bloc has a strong presence in Europe, as well as India, Brazil,
the Philippines, Turkey, and Israel. In fact, a global organization has been

458 Harris
established, the International Democratic Union, whose membership includes

72 right-wing parties from around the world. By far the most important coun-
try of influence is the US. Trump has not established a hegemonic bloc with
ruling class consensus in both political parties. But he has fully taken over the
Republican Party, the most powerful political party in the developed world,
and mobilized a solid and loyal reactionary base.
Militarized accumulation certainly plays an important role for global capi-
talism. All the world’s major financial institutions have billions invested in the
three big US military corporations – Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop
Grumman – about $120 billion in total. An additional $700 billion plus in US
government spending goes to the military industrial complex. But these figures
need to be put into context. The 17-largest financial institutions in the world
collectively control $41 trillion, with investments in every sector of the global
economy (Phillips 2018). Consequently, militarized accumulation is significant,
but only one part of a much larger picture. Nevertheless, there is considerable
ideological and culture power embedded in military history and mythology
that supports its influence throughout society.
The privatization of prisons is another element in the repressive accumula-
tion model. This sector has been growing for 25 years, and about 75 percent
of US-detained immigrants are held in prisons run by for-profit corporations.
Thirteen banks provide over $2.6 billion in credit, but Bank of America is the
only major global bank to do so (Carter 2019). Bank of America also has a close
relationship with Caliburn, the only for-profit company running migrant-child
detention camps. Retired general and former Trump White House chief of staff
John Kelly, retired General Anthony Zinni, Admiral James Stavridis, and Rear
Admiral Kathleen Martin are all board members of Caliburn, which is owned
by the investment firm DC Capital Partners (Kates 2019). Moreover, the two
biggest for-profit private prison corporations, GEO Group and CoreCivic, each
have donated large sums to Trump’s organization.
At a few billion dollars, repressive accumulation remains a relatively small
sector of the overall economy, but it plays an important political role for the
authoritarian project, particularly so as a political and cultural representation
for the xenophobic base of reactionary nationalism. The board member-
ship of Caliburn also reveals how militarized and repressive accumulation
provides a network for a faction of the TCC. A controlling regime doesn’t
always need a broadly based hegemonic bloc that runs throughout the ruling
class. It does need to be more highly organized, while its opponents bow to
passive acquiescence.
Taken together both arms of authoritarian accumulation constitute only one
noteworthy sector of a much bigger global economy, even if we include other
aspects of its economic activity such as surveillance technology. Yet it wields

enormous political clout. Although the most reactionary faction of the TCC
may have a relatively shallow economic base, it forms the core of an attractive
political model of repressive stability, and coalesces elites tied through careers
and direct investments in the industry. This creates a rather narrow field for a
hegemonic bloc, but one with a clear project.
Militarized and repressive accumulation has an invaluable ally in right-wing
libertarianism, best represented by the Koch brothers’ network. Although
coming from different ideological viewpoints, both authoritarian capitalists
and reactionary libertarians have common interests in dismantling all forms
of democratic governance. In the early 1970s the billionaire Koch broth-
ers constructed an organizational network in what they termed “a Leninist
strategy” (MacLean 2017:125–126). Over $100 million was funneled into gen-
erating a cadre in 64 non-profit think tanks that have pushed to change laws,
control the judiciary, make voting more difficult, and worked to weaken dem-
ocratic governance.
Christian fundamentalists have formed the most loyal base for Trump’s
power project. Many are Protestant theocracy-minded fundamentalists, espe-
cially from the Dominionist sects. They view globalists as a “liberal-socialist
bloc,” attacking everyone from Mitt Romney to Bernie Sanders. Their bibli-
cal fundamentalism is a doorway to their economic and social views, which
closely parallel libertarian doctrine. They call for abandoning nearly all regula-
tions, much of the safety net, overturning Roe v. Wade, getting rid of marriage
equality, and abolishing the IRS in favor of a single, flat tax. The long-term goal
is to establish a theocratic, Christian nation.
On foreign policy Christian Nationalists argue at times for neo-isolationism,
but favor an all-out holy war on “radical Islamic terrorism,” pushed for moving
the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and leaving the Iran nuclear deal. All
this is aimed at hastening the End Times, the Rapture, and the Second Coming.
In a Salon article on right-wing religious nationalists, author Paul Rosenberg
(2018) quotes research expert Christopher Stroop who notes that,
We have long since understood that evangelicalism is authoritarian

through and through, and when we see evangelicals pushing for greater
recognition of God in America’s public life and institutions, we understand
that this effort is not about inclusive patriotism or even robust pluralism.
We know that most evangelicals would be more than happy to impose
their beliefs with the force of coercive law however possible, because we
have been privy, for decades, to how they talk among themselves.
For this trilateral authoritarian power bloc democracy is the enemy, but another
great common foe is the environmental movement. Of course, fossil fuel is the

460 Harris
basis of Koch family wealth. But even more fundamental for all three wings
is a deep fear that environmental action will mean a significant expansion
of regulatory governmental programs. For libertarians this means an attack
on markets and all the neoliberal gains of the past 40 years. For authoritar-
ian neoliberal capitalists it poses an ideological challenge of human solidarity
backed by progressive governmental policies. And for religious fundamental-
ists it replaces dogma with a scientific understanding of life and morality. The
right-wing reaction to the Green New Deal (GND) has been nothing short of
apoplectic. James Lileks of the National Review calls the GND “total govern-
ment control over the nation’s economy (and) worship of central planning;”
Ryan Bourne of the Cato Institute warned that it’s a “radical front for nation-
alizing” our country; and Fox News compared it to the Cultural Revolution
(Phillips-Fein 2019).
As a social bloc of different factions, authoritarian capitalism presents a
hybrid alliance of nationalist and transnationalist interests. As such there is
often a contradictory mix of policies that mirror the priorities of each. Trump,
Sheldon Adelson, the Mercer, Koch, and Olin families, as well as other large
financial players all have significant holdings that span the globe. The tech-
nology corporations, so deeply linked to surveillance and military weaponry,
without exception have large transnational footprints. Even Trump’s trade
war with China was essentially a demand that they conform more closely to
Western neoliberal business norms that have ruled globalization.
But the political narrative that won a global following for authoritarian
capitalism is one whose language is rooted in national myths of greatness, cul-
tural purity, closed borders, xenophobia, and verbal attacks on global elites.
Consequently, political leaders such as Trump, Modi, and Bolsonaro must
institute policies that keep the loyalty of their base, as well as nationalists who
have influence in elite networks.
There are a number of striking examples of the nationalist/globalist ten-
sion within the authoritarian bloc. With COVID-19 hitting the economy
the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the
US-China Business Council, the American Apparel and Footwear Association,
and the National Retail Federation all asked for a permanent roll-back of
tariffs, a move they opposed from the start (Swanson 2020). Another sharp
difference, though underreported, was the US blocking the appointment of
judges to the WTO’s Appellate Body. This is the WTO’s key mechanism to settle
trade disputes, three-quarters of which make their way to the Appellate Body.
Phil Hogan, the European trade commissioner stated because of US actions,
“The WTO is facing its deepest crisis since its creation” and without the ability
to enforce trade rules “we’d have the law of the jungle” (Swanson 2019).

The result is friction with the TCC, (many who are comfortable with authori-
tarian rule) over aspects of trade, immigration, and environmental and health
policies. This ongoing tension within the authoritarian political alliance
between nationalists and globalists is somewhat analogous to Germany’s
industrial capitalists believing they could use and control fascism, only to be
overtaken by the Nazi Party. It’s an unstable and dangerous game, and one that
significant sectors of the TCC oppose.
3 The Green Capitalist Bloc
There is an important faction of the US ruling class and global TCC that links the
future of capitalism to green accumulation. To have some idea of the impres-
sive array of billionaires and multi-millionaires we can view a very short list
including: Bill Gates; Jeff Bezos; Michael Bloomberg; Tom Steyer; Elon Musk;
Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton and ex-CEO of
Citicorp; Hank Paulson, former Secretary of the Treasury under George H. Bush
and ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs; and Larry Fink, Chair of Blackrock, the world’s
largest financial institution. The Economist (2019) listed 12 billionaire climate
capitalists with a total worth of $200 billion that included some of the above.
But among the non-US TCC were Wang Chuanfu founder of BYD, a Chinese
producer of solar cells and electric cars (Warren Buffet’s original investment
in BYD of $232 million is now worth $1.5 billion); Zhang Yue, another Chinese
manufacturer; Rubens Ometto Silveira Mello from Brazil, founder of Cosan,
the world’s biggest bioenergy corporation; and Germany’s Aloys Wobben, a
leading producer of wind turbines. The Economist also included Pope Francis
with his hold over the Vatican Bank’s assets of $3 billion. The political spectrum
spans neoliberals to neo-Keynesians, but they all see a new historic round of
accumulation in the growth of green technologies.
There are a broad array of green think tanks, NGOs, funders, and green capi-
talist enterprises. Think tanks and NGOs are mainly concentrated in Europe and
the US, but China, Japan, and India have major green corporate entities that
are active throughout the world. Politically green capitalism splits into three
general factions with differences over the role of markets and government,
an emphasis on lobbying and international conferences versus building mass
movements, and linking issues of social justice to environmental justice. These
are most clearly seen in the division between corporate-funded policy groups,
philanthropic-supported NGOs, and left activists of the Green New Deal. The
political questions are: can these factions coalesce into a hegemonic bloc, and
will the Left be in a position to eventually lead an ecosocialist transition?

462 Harris
4 Philanthropic Funders
Twenty-five foundations constitute over 90 percent of the funding for NGOs

concerned with climate change (Morena 2016:10). Of these, just six made up
70 percent of such funding: the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; the
David and Lucile Packard Foundation; the Rockefeller Foundation; the Energy
Foundation; the Oak Foundation; and Sea Change (Morningstar 2019:173).
Examining these six philanthropies provides a good starting place to under-
standing the money and interests behind a green capitalist project.
With $8.74 billion in assets Hewlett is among the most powerful funders.
Larry Kramer, president of the Hewlett Foundation, former dean of Stanford
Law School, and board member of the ClimateWorks Foundation, argues for
a green project that would replace neoliberal hegemony. As Kramer explains,
… today’s prevailing intellectual paradigm – which has come to be labeled

‘neoliberalism’ – is no longer up to the task … it has proven unable to
provide satisfactory answers to problems like wealth inequality, wage
stagnation, economic dislocation due to globalization, and loss of jobs
and economic security due to technology and automation … circum-
stances are ripe for the emergence of a new intellectual paradigm – a
different way to think about political economy and the terms for a new
21st century social contract. Helping develop and communicate such
ideas is a task well suited to philanthropy.
Hewlett Foundation 2018:2
Kramer has a broad historical understanding of hegemonic blocs. In recount-

ing the triumph of neoliberalism, he notes how its victory
in favor of free market orthodoxy in the 1970s and ‘80s reshaped the entire
world … Fiscal policy, monetary policy, labor policy, trade policy, welfare
policy and industrial policy (and) similarly colonized law, political sci-
ence, sociology, psychology, anthropology, public policy … corporate
governance, how workers and executives are paid, and how the financial
sector operates (Ibid:6).
Consequently, when Kramer argues for a replacement of neoliberalism, he in

turn is looking to reshape the world.
Moreover, Kramer knows how organization and money are key to creating
dominant ideas. He writes,

The triumph of market ideology did not occur organically. It was, in fact,
an intentional, cultivated, and – most important for present purposes –
well-funded effort … the free market movement was paid for – backed
every step of the way by sympathetic foundations and philanthropists
who provided the resources to succeed (Ibid).
Kramer points out both Republicans and Democrats pushed versions of neo-
liberalism and “share the blame” for today’s social upheavals. “The upshot is
that the 20th century free market paradigm has reached the end of its useful
shelf life. There is little or no room left within it for useful solutions, or even
productive disagreement about alternatives” (Ibid:17). This is where philan-
thropy comes in, to fund various think-tank efforts to create a new dominant
narrative that can evolve into a counter-hegemonic force and replace neoliber-
alism. The networking of post-neoliberal think tanks is already well underway,
and Kramer mentions a dozen institutions in the US and Europe. Reflective
of Kramer’s list is the Omidyar Network, (the philanthropy and think tank of
eBay founder Pierre Omidyar), which calls for “reimagining capitalism,” greater
“worker power,” and criticizes capitalism for “increasingly untenable inequities
across economic, racial and geographic lines” (Omidyar Network 2020).
Kramer’s major weakness is his lack of understanding of how quickly con-
ditions can change when explosive social contradictions come to a head.
While he stresses the role of intellectuals in creating hegemonic ideology, he
demonstrates no recognition that mass movements are key in creating social
transformations. His conception of building a counter hegemonic project is
conceived in similar terms to the long and patient road taken by neoliberal-
ism. But the environmental crisis may not be so patient, nor the working class
and the current generation of youth activists. Kramer has an elite strategy that
understands the ruling class, without any real comprehension of the explosive
social forces gathering below.
The money for the Hewlett Foundation originates from the co-founder
of the early tech company Hewlett-Packard. Among its 12 board members are
four Hewlett family members, a former senior executive of Eli Lilly, co-founder
of software companies C3 and Siebel Systems, Chair of the private equity
fund Credence Capital, and Chair of McKinsey Global Institute (Hewlett
Foundation 2020).
As for key characteristics of the other major philanthropies, we can begin
with the Packard Foundation. Packard’s funding of $6.3 billion originates from
the wealth of the Packard family of Hewlett-Packard. It has given out $930 mil-
lion to NGOs working on global climate change, funding 193 organizations in

464 Harris
14 different countries (Packard Foundation 2020). Most of the board members

have backgrounds in government, philanthropy, and academia, particularly
in health and the environment. Corporate experience usually comes from the
tech sector, and half of the board are alumni of Stanford University, a univer-
sity whose network runs through much of environmental philanthropy and
West Coast wealth.
Sea Change was founded in 2006 by Nathaniel Simons and Laura
Baxter-Simons. Its exclusive focus is clean energy policies and climate change.
Nathaniel Simons was a board member of Renaissance Technologies, a Silicon
Valley investment group founded by his father. He started the investment man-
agement firm Meritage Group, co-founded the clean tech investment fund
Prelude Ventures, and is a supporter of the UC Berkeley-Tsinghua Joint Research
Center on Energy and Climate Change (Wikipedia 2020b). Simons’ estimated
net worth is $10.6 billion, and Forbes ranks him as the 74th-richest person in
the world. One of their major efforts was to help launch Climate Action100+,
a group of 320 investors with over $33 trillion in assets under management,
to pressure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters “to improve
governance … and curb emissions” (Ibid). Thus, Sea Change has strong ties
to the green sector of finance that understands both the opportunity and dan-
ger the environmental crisis poses for capitalism.
The Energy Foundation headquartered in San Francisco is a unique creation.
It was incorporated by the MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation,
and Pew Charitable Trust in 1990, and acts as a conduit for other foundations,
taking in grants and distributing funds. Its main funders have been Hewlett,
Packard, Sea Change, McKnight, and MacArthur. But other familiar names
appear such Google, Bloomberg, and the Schmidt Family Foundation (estab-
lished by Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google). Jason Mark is Energy
Foundation CEO, and previously worked for the Union of Concerned Scientists
and the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Princeton. (Energy
Foundation 2020). Between 1998 and 2015 the Energy Foundation made more
than 30,000 grants totaling over $1.2 billion to some 12,000 recipients. The
top-five recipients were the Natural Resources Defense Council, Union of
Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club, Partnership Project, and the Environmental
Defense Fund. It connected with China when the Packard and Hewlett founda-
tions brought the China Sustainable Energy Program into the mix with a $22
million grant.
Rockefeller is an elite liberal funder, through both its foundation and
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Among climate-orientated founda-
tions Rockefeller has the most board members with direct connections
to financial institutions. Richard Parsons is Board Chair, as well as Senior
Advisor of Providence Equity Partners LLC, and previously Chairman of the

Board of Citigroup and Time Warner. Other board members include: Mellody
Hobson, Vice-Chair of the Board of Starbucks and a director of JPMorgan
Chase; Martin L. Leibowitz, Vice Chairman of the Morgan Stanley Research
Department’s Global Strategy Team; Yifei Li, Country Chair for Man Group
in China, one of the world’s largest hedge fund managers with assets over
$60 billion; and Jim Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and
Operating Executive and Chair of The Carlyle Group (Rockefeller Foundation
2020). The Rockefeller entities are very active in both funding and policy areas.
As a “thought leader” their website notes, “Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
develops strategic plans, conducts research, manages foundations and trusts,
structures major gifts, coordinates donor collaboratives, and provides regrant-
ing and fiscal sponsorship services … in more than 25 countries” (Rockefeller
Philanthropy Advisors 2020).
The Oak Foundation is centered in Europe, and like most philanthropies has
several areas of social justice concern, but environmental issues receive the
most funding. Oak has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland with offices in
Denmark, India, the UK, the US, and Zimbabwe. It has made grants to some
4,000 organizations, and their environmental arm has supported groups in
Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, India, Southeast Asia, and the US. The bud-
get for their environmental arm is set at $57 million a year. British-born Alan
Parker is the founder and main funder, having co-founded Hong Kong-based
Duty Free Shoppers. His net worth is estimated at $2.34 billion. His grandson
Kristian Parker heads the environmental program, and carries a doctorate
in environmental sciences. Between 1999 and 2018, Oak gave out more than
$780 million in grants in over 36 countries (Influence Watch 2020).
Reviewing the histories of philanthropy board members shows a good num-
ber come from corporate backgrounds, as well as governmental and academic
fields. Virtually absent, though, are those with backgrounds in the fossil fuel
industry or military-industrial complex. Perhaps more important than their
career or family background is a common ideological commitment to social
and environmental reformism set within the capitalist system. Also evident is
the transnational character of philanthropy activity. Within this network we
begin to see a core of transnational capitalists dedicated to promoting green
capitalism, and that West Coast tech capitalists emerge as the most repre-
sented faction.
5 Corporate-Funded Policy Groups
Parallel to philanthropic foundations, which are often the creation of indi-

vidual capitalist families, are corporate-funded climate and environmental

466 Harris
policy groups. Jean Philippe Sapinski (2016) did a detailed study of 11 elite
transnational climate capitalist policy groups. These do intensive lobbying
and participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conferences known as
COP. Each of the 11 groups have their niche, but the World Business Council
for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), established for transnational CEOs
and tied to the International Chamber of Commerce, is the most networked
to the other organizations. Among the groups analyzed by Sapinski are the
Business Council for Sustainable Energy and the European Business Council
for a Sustainable Energy Future, both speak for non-fossil fuel energy compa-
nies such as solar, wind, nuclear, and hydro (p. 2).
In terms of corporate board representation, energy corporations make
up the largest industrial sector (48 corporations), five are exclusively green
energy firms, the others have renewables as one division among diversified
investments. The next largest group are business consultants, law firms, and
accountant firms involved as lobbyists, advisors, or legal representatives of
companies concerned with energy and the environment. Banks and financial
institutions have 23 representatives, but the financial sector has little overall
representation, and the US financial sector is entirely absent in those orga-
nizations based in North America except for one policy group. Where strong
energy and financial ties do exist is among the three most networked core
groups, the WBCSD, the Copenhagen Climate Council, and the International
Emissions Trading Association. Most of the 171 TNCs represented on boards
are headquartered in the US or Europe. Nine are from Japan, seven from China,
four each from India and Brazil, and 11 others from the Global South.
As Sapinski (2016) explains,
The project is driven by a section of the corporate elite that seeks to

establish new bases for accumulation within a broadly neoliberal order.
Hence the stated goal of climate capitalism is, in the long-term, to divert
financial flows from the oil and coal sectors … and redirect them to
support the ecological modernization of capitalist production process.
Corporate-funding … activities are crucial to conceptualize the new
regime and mobilize broad corporate elite support for it. As well, the net-
work they assemble constitute an essential infrastructure around which
the climate capitalist section can organize (p. 14).
We can take a brief look at the three groups that Sapinski identifies as the
core of the business network. The WBCSD is the most formidable group
consisting of over 200 TNCs, with revenues of $8.5 trillion and employing
19 million workers. The Executive Committee is a transnational gathering of

CEOs representing world-spanning corporations that include: Shell, Nestlé,

Microsoft, Banco Santander, Toyota, Unilever, and, lesser known in the pop-
ular press, ArcelorMittal (India-Belgium, steel), ENGIE (France, energy),
Fujitsu (Japan, IT), Natura (Brazil, cosmetics), Olam International (Singapore,
agriculture and food), Sinopec (China, oil), and Yara International (Norway,
chemicals) (WBCSD 2020).
Founded in 2007 the Copenhagen Climate Council (CCC) was formed
to provide “strong support from the international business community” in
UN COP climate change policy discussions, and has strong ties throughout
Europe as well as China (Storm 2020). Founded by Erik Rasmussen it brings
together business leaders, policy makers, and scientists. Among its Councilors
are Sir Richard Branson (CEO of Virgin), Samuel DiPiazza, Jr. (CEO of
PricewaterhouseCoopers), Ditlev Engel (former CEO of Vestas Wind Systems),
Paul Otellini (president and CEO of Intel), Zhengrong Shi (president and CEO
of Suntech), Li Xiaolin (CEO of China Electric Power International), and James
Rogers (president and CEO of Duke Energy) (Wikipedia 2020a).
The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) was established to
help businesses find market solutions for climate change. Its main function is
to create a framework for carbon trading, and it represents TNCs from “across
the carbon trading cycle.” It maintains a staff of policy experts in the US,
Canada, the UK, Switzerland, Belgium, New Zealand, and China. Half the
board turns over yearly, but among the 2019 board members corporate repre-
sentatives included Bank of America, BP, Chevron, ENGIE, Shell, and perhaps
less familiar, BHP (Australia, mining), CLP (Hong Kong, sustainable energy),
Enel (Italy, energy), DeMarco Allan (Canada, climate law firm), Mitsui (Japan,
metals, energy), and Suncor (Canada, tar sands) (IETA 2020). Among their cor-
porate members are Koch, Rio Tinto, Total, and Dow.
Comparing boards and companies involved in philanthropic and corporate-
funded policy groups we see lines of distinct interests. While some overlaps
exist, evidence suggests corporate-funded policy groups advocate a neoliberal
approach to climate solutions with significant ties to energy and industrial
TNCs. Philanthropic funders, while firmly within the framework of capitalism,
are thinking beyond neoliberalism, are often active in social justice issues, and
advocate a greater role for governmental regulatory action. Furthermore, there
is a significant difference in board membership and different links in network
patterns. What is similar for both wings is that they are advocating a different
strategy for capitalism than militarized accumulation.
Both wings seek what Antonio Gramsci termed a “passive revolution.” As
William K. Carroll (2020) explains,

468 Harris
Climate capitalism fits the Gramscian notion of passive revolution quite

well …(it) offers a system affirming response to the climate crisis which
tugs at consumerist hearts and technocratic minds, averts the need for
any leap into unknown territory, and seems to carry minimal costs; prom-
ises to reconfigure the forces of production to avert runaway climate
change, yet protects the relations of production which form the nucleus
of a now-global, class dominated way of life; and portends a molecular
shift in the historical bloc, as fossil capital enters managed decline while
renewable energy substitutes (and associated workforces) develop under
the control of big capital (p. 14).
A passive revolution also incorporates movement leaders and activists, and in

this arena, philanthropies are deeply involved.
Undercutting the viability of a green capitalism bloc is the hold of neo-
liberal ideology within the corporate and financial sector. As Sapinski (2016)
notes most climate capitalists are “profoundly anchored in neoliberal ideals of
corporate self-regulation, limited state intervention, and technology fetishism
(italics in the original)” (p. 79). If such ideology dominates green capitalism,
it will reproduce all the existing problems of inequality, social conflicts, and
market failures that have marked globalization. The political split over the pro-
grammatic orientation of green capitalism was seen in the Democratic Party
primaries, with Bloomberg representing the neoliberal wing and Sanders rep-
resenting the Green New Deal Left. Tom Seyer and the governor of Washington,
Jay Inslee, positioned themselves in the center, taking an approach common to
the major environmental NGOs and philanthropic funds. What was new in the
presidential debates is that for the first time we could see the different wings
of green capitalism represented and fighting for leadership.
More fundamentally than differences in the primary debates is that market
competitive rationality greatly weakens the ability of capitalism to respond
to the environmental crisis. Ironically the steep drop in solar panel prices cre-
ated two large-scale recessions in the industry. With a drop in price came a
drop in profits and the bankruptcy of dozens of companies. Connected to the
price drop was also a crisis of overproduction, with the market unable to con-
sume the number of solar panels produced. In 2012 solar production in China
exceeded global demand by 33 percent, resulting in its two largest solar firms
going bankrupt alongside dozens of others worldwide. Only in capitalism
could the rapid production of a desperately needed technology at a low price
produce an economic crisis.
The split in green capitalism means they have no unifying ideology. The two
dominant capitalist blocs in the twentieth century were Keynesianism and
neo-liberalism. Both consolidated the capitalist class around a social, political,

and economic ideology that defined and structured the relations of produc-
tion between labor and capital. For Keynesianism, the model of accumulation
centered on expanding the social contract, recognition of labor rights, secure
jobs, higher wages, and greater consumption. Moreover, it was flexible enough
when confronted by the civil rights and women’s movements to encompass
some of their key demands. Neo-liberalism slashed the social contracts, broke
unions, and instituted austerity and flexibility into the workforce that resulted
in less security, lower wages, and the precariatization of the working class.
Internally split between Keynesianism and neoliberalism, green capitalism
offers no comprehensive model of accumulation. Meanwhile, large sections
of the green social base have moved to Left social democracy. The result is no
unified vision of social relations exist. Which sector wins out and defines the
structure of capital/labor relations will determine the success of the project.
Lacking any real appeal to the working-class, green neo-liberalism cannot
defeat authoritarian capitalism. Perhaps the best that can be said about neo-
liberal greens such as Bloomberg and Bezos are their deep dislike of Trump.
But the money-rich faux populism of Bloomberg’s primary run exposes just
how shallow their appeal is. If green neoliberalism wins leadership their pas-
sive revolution may well fail to attract the necessary popular base.
Only a project that speaks to both environmental and social justice can gen-
erate the mass movement necessary to win against authoritarian rule. It’s the
environmental base and the social justice vision of the Green New Deal that’s
putting energy and urgency to the political and economic issues. Here we have
a green transnational movement from below, the opposite of the green capital-
ists who exist at the top of the planetary social hierarchy. The potential of the
GND to undercut the radical Right was indicated in a European study on voter
concerns. The second-most-popular statement by far-right respondents was,
“We need to act on climate change because it’s hitting the poorest first and it’s
caused by the rich” (Bennhold 2019). A mirror reflection is Trump’s actions on
climate change are his least-supported actions falling to 29 percent, and sig-
nificantly lower than his overall 44 percent approval rating (Inslee 2019). Both
surveys indicate that unity around a social justice vision of the GND is possible,
something green neo-liberalism will never deliver.
6 China and Green Capitalism
No discussion of green capitalism as a transnational project would be com-

plete without some attention paid to China. Well-known environment
economist Nicholas Stern has pointed out that what happens in China will
“shape the world’s future as it looks to combat climate change” (Murray 2020).

470 Harris
China is the dominant leader in sustainable technologies, including solar,

wind, and hydro, and a top producer of electric vehicles and lithium batteries
and storage. At $132 billion it’s the largest investor in renewable energy, spend-
ing one-third of the world’s total. Of the 8.1 million sustainable energy jobs
worldwide, China employs 3.5 million (Buckley and Nicholas 2017). But China’s
push into green manufacturing isn’t limited to its internal market, it plays a key
role in transnational green accumulation for global capitalism.
In the wind industry China has five of the top-ten turbine manufacturers.
Goldwind, as the world’s largest, has significant market penetration in the
US, Australia, Chile, Ecuador, Panama, Pakistan, Romania, South Africa, and
Thailand. Another Chinese TNC, Envision, has important innovation centers
in Denmark, Germany, and California, a battery-storage center in Japan, and
joint ventures in Mexico and Argentina. China Longyuan Power Group, the
largest wind-power operator in China, is active in Canada and South Africa,
and works in partnership with the Czech firm SWH Group in pursuit of green
energy investments in central and Eastern Europe (Ibid).
In the solar industry China has four of the top six TNCs. JinkoSolar and Trina
register as number one and two. Jinko has 16 overseas subsidiaries and pro-
duction in China, Malaysia, South Africa, and Portugal. Trina has regional
headquarters in California, Singapore, Tokyo, and Zurich, production in
China, Malaysia, Netherlands, and Thailand, and research and development
in Australia. JA Solar acquires fifty-seven percent of its revenues abroad, and
manufacturers in Brazil, Malaysia, and Vietnam. GCL employs 30,000 workers
globally and operates subsidiaries in Canada, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Singapore,
Taiwan, and the US (Ibid). Additionally in the production of solar inverters,
the important technology that converts the sun’s energy into electricity, China
has seven of the world’s top-ten companies, Huawei being number one.
These brief examples of leading wind and solar TNCs illustrate China’s cen-
tral position, its integration into transnational networks, and the depth of the
rapidly growing global green market. Taking solar and wind together China has
been the largest investor in clean energy for nine straight years.
China is also playing a leading role in organizing financial resources for
green projects around the world. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB), founded by China with over 80 member countries, has made a prior-
ity of financing sustainable infrastructure, and advocating for environmental
investing to help countries fulfill their Paris Agreement goals. In 2019 the bank
issued a $2.5 billion global bond that attracted orders from investors in 27
countries (AIIB 2019). The initiative was widely praised, with Barclays stating,
“This is an impressive first, historic, step towards AIIB’s long term future in the
international capital market (and) sustainable economic development” (Ibid).

The China Development Bank (CDB) and China Export and Import Bank
(CHEXIM) also play important roles in promoting solar and wind compa-
nies abroad, loaning out more than $2.5 billion between 2010 and 2018. Their
activity inside of China has been of even greater importance, financing about
40 percent of installed solar and wind power (Kong and Gallagher 2020).
Furthermore, China has the world’s largest Green Bond market, which hit a
global total of $93.4 billion in 2016. Overall, there are 2,000 funds dedicated to
financing green development, with five trillion under management. And since
2010 over $2.6 trillion has been invested in low-carbon energy projects. All this
indicates the growing economic basis for a hegemonic bloc built around green
accumulation, a TCC bloc in which China is taking a leading position.
An important aspect of China’s green activity are investments and loans in
the Global South. Financing sustainable energy projects in cash-poor coun-
tries at low rates is a strategic policy for China. As Tim Buckley, director for
the US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, notes,
“It is a way of expanding China’s growing global presence and dominant
economic force, and it progressively reorients the world from the U.S. and
European-centric view of the last fifty years” (Garrison 2019).
China’s welcome in the Global South reflects their shared history of colonial
oppression. Because of underdevelopment state planning is often essential and
capital badly needed. Six of the seven countries receiving financing from CDB
and CHEXIM are emerging economies, and about half of their total loans have
been through government-to-government contracts. Consequently, China
offers a model of development different from the Washington Consensus that
brought privatization, austerity, and social deprivations. In this sense China
becomes a leading voice for the Southern faction of the TCC fighting for an
equal place in a multi-centric world order. The state-led model of globalization
has come into conflict with the free-market regime favored by the West. This
isn’t so much a struggle between nations, as it is over how best to construct a
successful and inclusive model for global capitalism. Most of the TCC prefer
the problems be worked out through negotiations, and above all, not disrupt
continued integration of capital and production.
Differences between the state and market within the TCC are a product of
the imperialist world system, and the position countries historically occupy.
For reactionary nationalists this provides an opening to play a greater role in
the authoritarian project. China is continually hammered as a strategic enemy
in the popular imagination. Much of this is no more than jingoism and propa-
ganda, but the nationalist populist base must be fed, particularly so because
the myth of Western and Christian superiority is key to the authoritarian
narrative. Consequently, the hybrid nature of the authoritarian political alli-
ance creates two sides to the trade war. One side demands China conform to

472 Harris
Western institutional rules that favor market mechanisms over state direction,
and this plays well with Western TCC factions. But the other side, which dis-
rupts global value gains, drags Europe and Canada into trade conflicts with the
US, and creates an uncertain global investment climate are opposed by the
TCC. Nevertheless, the authoritarian capitalist faction needs to play to their
audience to create the necessary political support to obtain power.
The political landscape inside China may not be so greatly different from
that of the West. The Chinese fossil fuel industry maintains tremendous politi-
cal clout just as the industry does in the West. This is evident in China’s massive
transnational economic strategy, the One Belt One Road project (OBR). OBR
encompasses countries from every region of the Global South and Europe in
an effort to build infrastructure and energy endeavors worth trillions of dollars.
It is the most expansive globalist project in the world. Although eco-friendly
commitments have been incorporated into OBR’s strategic plans, in the $143 bil-
lion loaned for 165 energy and transportation ventures in 32 countries only
5.3 percent have been for solar and wind power (Zhou et al. 2018). Between
2001 and 2017 China participated in 240 coal projects in 25 countries, their
involvement surging 300 percent since the inception of OBR (Peng et al. 2017).
Similar problems appear in China’s policy banks the CDB and CHEXIM.
Between 2000 and 2018 almost 75 percent of their energy loans went to fossil
fuel projects, while renewables made-up only 1.35 percent. On one side devel-
oping countries that apply for loans commonly borrow to build hospitals and
housing, with sustainable energy lower on their list. On the other side Chinese
banks “base decisions on … profitability, future cash flows, and debt-paying,
and technical indicators such as grid connectivity and electricity transmis-
sion capacity” (Kong and Gallagher 2020). In other words, these are typical
bench marks and requirements of the capitalist market. Moreover, the primary
method of fundraising for CDB and CHEXIM are marketized, so bankability
becomes a key objective in judging the financial viability of renewable energy
projects. The banks need to make sure they can recover their loans, and so
conditions often demand “reliable revenue streams, credible collaterals, gov-
ernment guarantees, or a mortgage (on) a client country’s future commodities
export and resource exploration” (Ibid). Consequently, CDB and CHEXIM
may be banks of a socialist government, but they function according to the
rules of global capitalism. And such ru`les caution against the risks of rap-
idly promoting renewable energy in the Global South. Furthermore, because
most emerging countries lack a strong grid and technical sophistication, their
underdevelopment acts as a brake on gaining developmental loans – a capital-
ist Catch-22 difficult to escape.
China’s ‘going-out’ policy encourages the globalization of the solar and wind
industry’s entire value chain. And the rapid development of these industries

is playing a decisive role in the battle with climate change. But the underlying
contradictions, rooted to capitalist rationality of markets and profits as the key
arbiters of production and development, appear to undercut China’s efforts as
much as they do Western green capitalists.
Li Peilin (2018), Vice-President of the elite think tank in Beijing, the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), points to “three major contradictions of
Chinese society … contradictions between rich and poor, labor and capital,
and cadre and masses” (p. 586). Xuangong Wu (2019), writing in the CASS jour-
nal, warns that China
developing at the highest speed in the history of the world … formed both
socialist and capitalist production relations … playing their roles respec-
tively but simultaneously (and) as the two kinds of production relations
and economic laws coexist and interact with each other, the more power-
ful one will guide the direction and determine the future and destiny of
social development (p. 3).
Xuangong presses his point further,
If the capitalist economy surpasses the socialist public economy, the cap-
italist economy law will become the leading force, and Chinese society
may go backwards (Ibid).
Thus, the struggle between authoritarian capitalism and a society built around
social solidarity and ecological principals may be as central to China as coun-
tries in the West.
7 Conclusion
If we view Trump’s antagonism towards environmental actions and science

from the viewpoint of an emerging struggle between two hegemonic projects,
his opposition takes on strategic clarity. The White House has refused to sign
the Paris Accords, promotes coal and oil production, has reversed important
efforts by the Obama administration to slow greenhouse-gas emissions, has
limited and muzzled scientific research on global warming, and instituted
measures to change the very methodology of scientific reporting. The for-
mer President’s unwavering support for the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia adds
another important dimension. Billions in Saudi oil wealth are spent on US
military arms cementing ties between authoritarian capitalism, military accu-
mulation, and the fossil fuel destruction of Earth’s ecosystem.

474 Harris
At the present crossroads of history green capitalism offers a bourgeois

democratic alternative to authoritarian nationalism. Certainly, green capital-
ism offers the best political arena for the Left to build a transformative strategy
leading to ecosocialism. William K. Carroll (2020) distinguishes between
a passive revolution led by climate capitalists and “energy democracy” as a
counter-hegemonic strategy pursued by left NGOs, unions, and activists. As
Carroll explains,
to counter a passive revolution one must conduct an anti-passive revo-

lution: a war of position which extends popular-democratic and class
struggles … from fossil-fuel power to renewables and from corporate oli-
garchy to democratic control of economic decisions (p. 15).
Carroll advocates fighting for “non-reformist reforms” that can push towards a
full ecosocialist transition and defeat climate capitalist reformism.
Well-known Marxist environmentalist John Bellamy Foster (2019) takes
a somewhat different two-stage approach, which he calls “ecodemocratic
and ecosocialist.” Foster also sees the danger of a passive revolution, which
he describes as “Green Keynesianism, where the promise of unlimited jobs,
rapid economic growth and higher consumption militate against any solu-
tion to the planetary ecological crisis.” But he puts his hopes in broad popular
mobilization that moves from an eco-democratic platform lacking a critique
of capitalism, to a movement that grows to confront the system with an eco-
revolutionary opposition.
Just what type of tactical alliances, political methods, and organizational
forms the Left will develop to build a counter-hegemonic bloc will prove to
be complex and challenging. The pace of the environmental crisis and the
response of green capitalist reformism will largely determine Left strategy, tac-
tics, and criticism. But clearly the fate of humanity and the planet have never
been so intertwined.
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(15691497 - Perspectives On Global Development and Technology) Global Capitalism and Transnational Class Conflict

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Perspectives on Global Development PERSPECTIVES

Global Capitalism and Transnational Class Conflict

authoritarian capitalism – climate change – green capitalism – hegemonic blocs –

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/15691497-12341606

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

post-1945 wave of national liberation, imperialism adjusted its control through

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

The Great Recession of 2008 deepened these pre-existing differences, but

2 Two Hegemonic Projects Compete for Leadership

William I. Robinson (2018) describes the development of the reactionary trans-

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

established, the International Democratic Union, whose membership includes

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

We have long since understood that evangelicalism is authoritarian

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

3 The Green Capitalist Bloc

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Twenty-five foundations constitute over 90 percent of the funding for NGOs

… today’s prevailing intellectual paradigm – which has come to be labeled

Kramer has a broad historical understanding of hegemonic blocs. In recount-

Consequently, when Kramer argues for a replacement of neoliberalism, he in

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

14 different countries (Packard Foundation 2020). Most of the board members

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

5 Corporate-Funded Policy Groups

Parallel to philanthropic foundations, which are often the creation of indi-

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

The project is driven by a section of the corporate elite that seeks to

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

CEOs representing world-spanning corporations that include: Shell, Nestlé,

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Climate capitalism fits the Gramscian notion of passive revolution quite

A passive revolution also incorporates movement leaders and activists, and in

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

6 China and Green Capitalism

No discussion of green capitalism as a transnational project would be com-

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

China is the dominant leader in sustainable technologies, including solar,

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Xuangong presses his point further,

If we view Trump’s antagonism towards environmental actions and science

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

At the present crossroads of history green capitalism offers a bourgeois

to counter a passive revolution one must conduct an anti-passive revo-

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

Sklair, Leslie. 2001. The Transnational Capitalist Class. Oxford: Blackwell.

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 20 (2021) 453–477

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