Australian Left Review
Article Title
Multinationals and the Nation-State
Abstract
"NATIONAL INTERESTS” OR “CLASS INTERESTS?” In the last few years a substantial number of
marxist analyses of post-war capitalism have located the dominant contradiction of imperialism as one between multinational (or transnational) corporations and the nation state. While there are variations on the theme, the general conception is of a “power struggle” between multinational corporations and nation states. Thus in contemporary analyses of Australian capitalism we find statements such as: "The problem of building up the nation state is that with multinationals such nation states can exercise only a limited sovereignty on local branches of such companies."