GLOBALISATION AND CORPORATE POWER

This paper seeks to establish a view of the world within which globalisation and corporate power interact and shape the nature of the modern market economy. Drawing upon a range of theory and evidence, we consider the implications of the growth of transnational firms and concentrated market structures within the advanced industrial countries. We see ourselves as offering a framework to which other results can be added and assessed in order to move to a more accurate analysis of some of the major forces acting upon the global economy: we are not seeking to be comprehensive, but to offer a serious appraisal of a range of literature that relates to establishing such a world view. Our interim conclusion is that the present globalisation process (and the ensuing concentration of corporate power) has not met the wider interests of the global community: indeed it has contributed to a series of ‘strategic failures’ throughout the world economy.