ABSTRACT
Class formation is an ongoing historical process and refers to changes over time in the class structure of society, including the rise of new class groups and the decline of old ones. This chapter explores the transnational class formation that under globalization a new class fractionation, or axis, is occurring between national and transnational fractions of classes. An analysis of transnational class formation must start with the primacy of social relations of production in the constitution of antagonistic classes. The chapter examines the political implications of the transnationalization of the capital circuit. Capital has become increasingly liberated from the spatial barriers of the nation-state as a result of new technologies, the worldwide reorganization of production, and the lifting of nation-state constraints to the operation of the global market taking place under globalization. With the rise of transnational corporate and political elites, class fractionation is occurring along a new national/transnational axis.
