Conceptualising and researching the transnational capitalist class in Australia

Within the context of a sociology of the global system, this paper attempts to develop the concept of the transnational capitalist class (TCC) and how it can be researched in Australia. Four fractions of the TCC are distinguished: transnational corporation executives and their local affiliates; globalising bureaucrats, capitalist-inspired politicians and professionals; and consumerist elites. The history of tariff reform and the forces for and against protectionism provide fundamental historical background for explaining the forms of globalisation and the global dimensions of the TCC in the Australian case. The structure of the transnational capitalist class in Australia is analysed in terms of the economic base, political organisation and culture and ideology of its four fractions.