ABSTRACT

Structural Marxists have posited a process in which the state is the focal point of intercorporate conflict, which it resolves by imposing policies expressing an overall class interest. Coordinated sets of policies among companies can be established through intercorporate ownership. In so doing a corporation may seek ongoing relationships both with major suppliers and customers, creating other sources of intercorporate unity and cohesion. Investigating interlocking directorates is a promising, though complicated, way of studying the internal structure of the business community. Financial institutions, it appears, are the organizing units of the interlock network and the most prevalent sources of intercorporate power and unity. The business press contains daily announcements of lending arrangements between major industrial corporations and consortia of large financial firms, mainly banks and insurance companies. Inter-firm relationships, then, are organized by the predominance and pre-eminence of financial relationships and the clearly defined division between banks and insurance companies.