542789
research-article2014
RRPXXX10.1177/0486613414542789Review of Radical Political EconomicsGürcan
Book Review Essay
Capitalist Class Formation and
U.S. Imperialism
Van Der Pijl K. (2012) The Making of an Atlantic
Ruling Class, London and New York: Verso
Review of Radical Political Economics
2015, Vol. 47(3) 491­–493
© 2014 Union for Radical
Political Economics
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DOI: 10.1177/0486613414542789
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Efe Can Gürcan1
Abstract
The relevance of Van Der Pijl’s classic volume lies in its potential to provide an extensible
conceptual framework that accentuates the territoriality of capitalist-imperialism. The arguments
provided in the new preface are influenced by the author’s later work, which associates capitalist
globalization with the rise of masonic “transnational cosmopolitanism.” Such an assumption,
however, seems to contradict the book’s original argument about the territoriality of imperialism
and the state’s central role in manufactory hegemony.
JEL classification: B14, Y3
Keywords
Atlanticism, hegemony, imperialism, territoriality, transnationalism
The present volume is a 2012 republication of Kees Van Der Pijl’s classic The Making of an
Atlantic Ruling Class (MARC, originally published in 1984) with a new preface. A major part of
the book is devoted to the analysis of class formation processes and hegemonic struggles within
the U.S. bourgeoisie, from the Woodrow Wilson administration to the New Deal era. According
to Van Der Pijl, the hegemonic configuration of bourgeois-capitalist fractions draws its strength
from particular concepts of control, defined as “project[s] for the conduct of public affairs and
social control that aspire[s] to be a legitimate approximation of the general interest in the eyes of
the ruling class and, at the same time, the majority of the population, for at least a specific period”
(Van Der Pijl 2012: 7). The author associates the liberal internationalist concept of control with
the financial divisions of capitalists who unconditionally opt for a laissez-faire capitalism and
democratic pacifism. In turn, he relates the state-monopolistic concept of control to the bourgeois
fractions whose strategy of expansion relies on spheres-of-influence and inter-imperialist rivalry.
In the first half of his book, Van Der Pijl mostly focuses on the changing meanings of
Atlanticism as put forth by different bourgeois fractions of the United States, including J. P.
Morgan’s liberal internationalist support for Wilson’s cosmopolitanism, Wall Street’s support for
the Dawes Plan, as well as the Rockefeller group’s support for a state-monopolistic vision of
1Sociology
and Anthropology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
Date received: February 20, 2013
Date accepted: December 30, 2013
Corresponding Author:
Efe Can Gürcan, Sociology and Anthropology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Dr., Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6,
Canada.
Email: [email protected]
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Review of Radical Political Economics 47(3)
Atlanticism, which sought to compete with Britain and cooperate with Germany in the 1920s and
1930s. Van Der Pijl maintains that the hegemonic cohesion and strength of U.S. capitalism was
indebted to the corporate liberal concept of control originating from Fordism, namely “the growth
in the United States of a strongly internationalist automotive complex supporting a new mode of
accumulation which for the first time in history allowed a class compromise between capital and
labour to be constructed around a common interest in a rising rate of exploitation” (Van Der Pijl
2012: 90). Effectuated between 1933 and 1941, the Fordist corporate liberal strategy corresponded to a synthesis of laissez-faire capitalism and state intervention, which allowed for balancing the liberal international drive of “money capital” and the state-supported “productive
capital” in the Euro-Atlantic zone.
Van Der Pijl contends that three tactical-offensive breakthroughs stand out in the history of
corporate liberalism: the idea of “Atlantic Universalism” derived from the Rooseveltian New
Deal era (marked by the internationalization of Fordism and revival of Wilsonian internationalism) bearing on both Britain and the Soviet Union; the idea of an “Atlantic Union” marked by the
Marshall Plan for a united Euro-Atlantic alliance against the Soviet Union; and the idea of an
“Atlantic Partnership” promulgated by President Kennedy in front of an “emancipated” Europe
seeking for its own sphere of interest. The Roosevelt offensive came to establish a Fordist mode
of accumulation in the United States and generated the political conditions for a universalistic/
ultra-imperialist Atlantic coalition, without however initiating an economical restructuring of
class structures in Europe. Economic restructuring was initiated following the Marshall Plan,
which sought to lay the “material conditions for an Atlantic economy based on the generalization
of Fordism” in Europe against communism (Van Der Pijl 2012: 148-49). Europe’s economic
regeneration of the Marshall Plan era eventually led to the development of its self-confidence and
aspirations for a more independent path vis-à-vis the United States. As such, the Kennedy offensive witnessed the continuation of the Atlantic alliance under a mutual partnership strategy. By
the 1970s, however, U.S.-driven corporate liberalism could not escape from being disintegrated
following the fading away of the Euro-Atlantic industrial capacity, rising unemployment levels,
the disorganization of the working class, and the bourgeoning of money capital; having all
together contributed to the retreat of Atlantic integration and the end of Fordism.
A chief merit of Van Der Pijl’s classic volume is that it offers a sophisticated and well-grounded
Antonio Gramsci-informed analysis of capitalist class fractions and hegemonic regroupings.
Reasserting the centrality of class formation and the positioning of fractional elites in political
analysis, Van Der Pijl reveals that ruling classes do not constitute a fixed entity, and class formation is thus a continuous and contentious process. Furthermore, his analysis also suggests that a
fuller grasp of class formation process is inconceivable without taking into account the interaction of international class forces beyond the boundaries of nation-states. This being said, it would
be relevant to briefly address a major problematical issue regarding Van Der Pijl’s supplementary
framework as it is presented in the new preface. The author seems to rely on the assumption that
contemporary capitalism is characterized by a so-called “transnationalist” capitalist class, or a
“global ruling class,” which implicitly means that European bourgeoisies have merged with U.S.
imperialism, having eroded all the “national” differences once and for all: “Capital in this sense
is extra-territorial and cannot be internalised by states” (Van Der Pijl 2012: xxii). The transnationalist assumption that contemporary capitalism has become extra-territorial and states do not
matter anymore in the political-economic sense is diametrically opposed to the author’s original
thesis in MARC. On the contrary, the book itself is a sweeping contribution to the territoriality of
capitalism and the state’s role in class formation processes.
In the final analysis, it is one thing to talk about the historical emergence of a “trans-Atlantic”
class alliance under the U.S. hegemony and another to claim the formation of a “transnational
capitalist class,” which is more explicitly championed in Van Der Pijl’s later work that associates
capitalist globalization with the rise of some kind of masonic “transnational cosmopolitanism”
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493
Gürcan
and “transnational planning groups” (Van Der Pijl 2005). As far as the so-called transnationalization of capitalism is concerned, the home-base of most U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs)
remains a major determinant in the their share of assets, ownership, management, strategic decisions, employment, and research & development (Petras 2003: 40; Weiss 1998: 185). Similarly,
European capitalism is far from becoming transnationalized, since German, French, and British
capitalisms have preserved their national character, continuing to be dominated by national business elites (Hartman 2007: 85-88). Furthermore, outside of the context of the Atlantic relations,
Van Der Pijl’s thesis of the global ruling class and extra-territoriality of capitalism seems to be
invalidated by China’s model of economic growth and its ascendancy in Latin America and Africa
(Campbella 2008; Ding 2008) as well as the concomitant U.S. military aspirations to encircle Iran,
Russia, and eventually China (Nazemroaya 2012). In this sense, Van Der Pijl’s crude distinction
between the socialization of relations of production and that of spatial (foreign) relations as a
“separate trajectory” (Van Der Pijl 2012: xviii) does not sound like a convincing argument. This
distinction contributes to nothing but superficially asserting the imaginary, or metaphysical existence of a “transnational capital” regulated by a nation-ness “managerial cadre” (Van Der Pijl
2007). The contemporary relevance of Van Der Pijl’s MARC rather lies in its potential to provide
an extensible conceptual framework that accentuates the inherent territoriality of both capitalist
relations of production and imperialism in order to understand the emerging class coalitions and
hegemonic concepts of control against the U.S. and European hegemony in the Third World.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
References
Campbella, H. 2008. China in Africa: Challenging US global hegemony.” Third World Quarterly 29(1):
89-105.
Ding, Sheng. 2008. To build a “harmonious world”: China’s soft power wielding in the Global South.
Journal of Chinese Political Science 13(2): 193-213.
Hartman, M. 2007. Sociology of elites. London and New York: Routledge.
Nazemroaya, M. D. 2012. The globalization of NATO. Atlanta: Clarity Press.
Petras, J. 2003. The new development politics: The age of empire building and new social movements.
Aldershot: Ashgate.
Van Der Pijl, K. 2005. Transnational classes and international relations. London and New York: Routledge.
Van Der Pijl, K. 2007. Nomads, empires, states: Modes of foreign relations and political economy. London:
Pluto.
Van Der Pijl, K. 2012. The making of an Atlantic ruling class. London and New York: Verso.
Weiss, L. 1998. The myth of the powerless state. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Author Biography
Efe Can Gürcan (M.A. in international studies, University of Montréal) is a PhD student in sociology at
Simon Fraser University. He holds a SSHRC-Joseph-Armond Bombardier CGS Doctoral ScholarshipCategory A. His research interests lie in the areas of political sociology, Latin America (Argentina, Cuba,
Venezuela), development and agrarian studies, and Turkish politics and society. His works have been or
will be published in journals such as Rural Sociology, Dialectical Anthropology, Latin American
Perspectives, Capital & Class, and Socialism & Democracy.
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