ABSTRACT
The theory of industrial society and the associated managerialist position have been shown to involve a misreading of the evidence on corporate development in America and Britain; but does the model of finance capital fare any better as an explanation of the development of industrial capitalism? The growth of ‘institutional’ shareholdings and the consequent realignment of money capital and industrial production which have led to the dominance of control through a constellation of interests might be expected also to have produced the kinds of changes depicted in Hilferding’s (1910) analysis. ‘Finance capital’ as the fusion of ‘banking capital’ and ‘industrial capital’ was held to involve the emergence of alliances and coalitions between enterprises in various economic sectors and the formation of extensive networks of intercorporate linkages. A small inner circle of financiers occupy a central position in this system of relations and ensure a degree of coordination and intercorporate unity by virtue of their occupancy of key directorships on the banks which determine the availability of capital. Such ideas have their repercussions in debates about the ‘Money Trust’ in the USA and the ‘City’ in Britain. The common theme in such debates is the claim that banks and other enterprises involved in the granting of credit have interests which are opposed to those of manufacturing enterprises. On the basis of their divergent interests and their differential power, the two types of enterprise are seen as forced into antagonistic relations in which banks are able to assert their dominance by coercing manufacturers to act under conditions which will serve the interests of the providers of credit.
