Corporate Power and Canadian Capitalism

Raj S. Gandhi is a professor of sociology at the University of Calgary.

Challenging standard dependency theory, William Carroll argues from empirical evidence that Canada’s capitalists have maintained and consolidated their position at the centre of an intercorporate network. Corporate Power acknowledges the unusually high degree to which capital is concentrated in a relatively few giant corporations in Canada, but it denies that these interests are subordinate to American corporate capital.

To test the validity of this perspective, Carroll traces the accumulation of capital in the largest Canadian corporations and the institutional relations that have existed among the same firms since World War II. Instead of capitulating to foreign capital, Canadian capitalists have preserved and expanded their accumulation base while maintaining a dense network of intercorporate relations focused around Canadian-controlled financial and industrial companies.

From this interpretive position, Canada’s development is seen as broadly similar to that of other advanced capitalist countries: it culminates in an economy largely under the control of an indigenous financial-industrial elite, in the penetration of foreign economies by Canadian finance capital, and in a concomitant penetration of the domestic economy by foreign capital.

The book is an excellent critical assessment of Canadian dependency theory — rethinking of Canadian dependency and providing empirical data in support of the renewed conceptualization. For the latter, 33 statistical tables in eight chapters are further enhanced by two more tables in the appendix. The author also supplies some 12 figures in different chapters to illustrate his arguments. This solid empirical work should be of great interest to various social scientists including sociologists.