Bill Burgess wrote: >Perhaps the classic conglomerates (companies with divisions in various >sectors), but hasn't conglomeration increased through various kinds of >holding companies (more vertical than horizontal integration)? My >understanding it has in most countries, though the United States is a bit >of an exception. What's fallen out of fashion are conglomerates like ITT, which in its heyday had forests, hotels, telecoms, insurance, and I can't remember what else - all assembled, I might add, with the assistance of liberal icon Felix Rohatyn. Korea's chaebol are an exception, but their days may be numbered. >One of the traditional arguments against Canada being an imperialist >country is the lack of significant ownership links between banks and >industrial firms. I'm working on an argument that finance capital here >takes the form of financial and industrial firms being commonly owned by >holding companies, often family-controlled. Or is 'finance capital' an >obsolete category? Seems to me that Hilferding's use of it - the cartelized blending of financial and industrial capital - is obsolete. >So, are there really different sectors involved in the circuit of capital? >_Wall Street_ suggests that industrial firms are essentially >self-financing, using aggregate data. But as noted above, 'Wall Street' has >been gaining power. Isn't this a contradiction? Not through their power over external finance, but through their power to lobby and displace managers, vote on shareholder resolutions, and instigate takeovers. Now that CEOs are largely paid in stock options, the interests of shareholders and managers have, as they say, been aligned. Doug
