ABSTRACT
Global capitalism is an extension of capitalism from the national to the transnational and global level. The central class contradiction of capitalism, as it developed from its origins in Europe and subsequently spread throughout the world, is the labor–capital relation based on the exploitation of wage labor. The global expansion of capital across the world, while beneficial to a handful of global monopolies and the capitalist class in general, has brought about a shift in the domestic economy of the advanced capitalist states – from industrial production to finance and the service sectors – resulting in an overall economic decline within the advanced capitalist centers. The development of capitalism over the past hundred years formed and transformed capitalist society on a global scale. The globalization of capital and imperialist domination of the world political economy have thus led to the intensification of the global contradictions of capital, which continues to have a great impact on class relations throughout the world.
