Corporate Capitalism and the Integral State: General Electric and a Century of American Power (Marx, Engels, and Marxisms)

This book advances an original conception of the relationship between state and corporate power in the United States. Using what he terms an Institutional Marxist framework, Maher argues that, far from passively responding to interest group pressures, the state has been a key agent in politically mobilizing business, and has played an active role in the organization of lobbying groups. Such business associations do not merely express the pre-existing interests of their corporate members, but are also mechanisms through which the state organizes the political power of the capitalist class. They form part of what the author refers to as an integral state —a wider network of state power which traverses and interpenetrates the state bureaucracy, the legislature, the industrial policy apparatus, and corporate governance. Based on extensive archival research, this book tracks the role of the General Electric Company as a pillar of the integral state in the United States from the finance capital period (1880 to 1930), through the managerial period (1930-1979), to the restructuring leading up to the age of neoliberalism (1979-present). Series Foreword Titles Published Titles Forthcoming Foreword Acknowledgments Praise for Corporate Capitalism and the Integral State Contents Abbreviations 1 The Making of the Integral State Neo-Pluralism and the Capitalist State The Theory of the Integral State Institutional Marxism The Case of General Electric A Note on Sources 2 The Making of General Electric in the Era of Finance Capital Edison, Morgan, and the Creation of GE Managerial Expansion and the Incubator of Finance Capital The New American State 3 The Formation of the State-Capital Complex From the Great War to the New Capitalism Capitalist Crisis, State Formation, and the “Planning Impulse” 4 The Golden Age of Managerialism and the State Industrial Policy System Managing War Production The Industrial Policy System and Corporate Decentralization The Golden Age of Capitalism and “The New GE” The State, Managerial Hegemony, and the New Company Unionism General Electric, the National Security State, and the New Right 5 From Class Interest to National Interest: General Electric and the Making of an Informal Empire Relative Autonomy, the Integral State, and the National Interest The State Department and the Ideological State Apparatus American Hegemony, Class Power, and the Internationalization of the Integral State Capitalist Dissent at Home to the New Imperial State Antitrust, MNCs, and the Contradictions of “Free Trade” 6 The Financialization and Internationalization of General Electric The Great Electrical Conspiracy and the Crisis of the State-Capital Relationship GE and the Crisis of Managerialism GE and the Emergence of Financial Hegemony 7 The Business Roundtable and the End of Managerialism The Pay Board and the Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable The March Club and the Business Roundtable Business Organization and the Economic Policy Apparatus The Business Roundtable and the Fight for Deregulation The Formation of the Neoliberal State in the Carter years Finance, Industry, and Neoliberal Hegemony 8 From Capital Controls to Free Trade: The Making of the Internationalized Neoliberal State The End of Bretton Woods and the Renewal of State-Business Trade Collaboration Relative Autonomy and the National Interest The Integral State Trade Apparatus The Department of Commerce and the President’s Export Council Corporate Power and the Internationalized Neoliberal State 9 General Electric, Financialization, and the Neoliberal Integral State Political and Economic Origins of Neoliberalism Jack Welch and “Shareholder Value” Bibliography Index "This book offers a ground-breaking interpretation of class, corporate and state power, through the all-important case study of GE.This extraordinarily valuable work of scholarshipwill transform the field of political economy." --Alfredo Saad-Filho, Professor of Political Economy and International Development and Chair of International Development, King's College London, UK "Maher's impressive book draws on political economy, critical state theory, and historical institutionalism to elaborate a theory of the integral state. It is a major contribution to critical state theory and American political development." --Clyde W. Barrow, Professor and Chair of Political Science, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA "Maher's excavation of GE delivers an ambitious theoretical treatise offering insights ranging across political economy, finance, the theory of the corporation, the understanding of the American state and the corporate-state nexus." --Sam Gindin, former Research Director of the Canadian Auto Workers Union This book advances an original conception of the relationship between state and corporate power in the United States. Using what he terms an Institutional Marxist framework, Maher argues that, far from passively responding to interest group pressures, the state has been a key agent in politically mobilizing business, and has played an active role in the organization of lobbying groups. Such business associations do not merely express the pre-existing interests of their corporate members, but are also mechanisms through which the state organizes the political power of the capitalist class. They form part of what the author refers to as an integral state--a wider network of state power which traverses and interpenetrates the state bureaucracy, the legislature, the industrial policy apparatus, and corporate governance. Based on extensive archival research, this book tracks the role of the General Electric Company as a pillar of the integral state in the United States from the finance capital period (1880 to 1930), through the managerial period (1930-1979), to the restructuring leading up to the age of neoliberalism (1979-present). Stephen Maher is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Ontario Tech University, Canada