Journal articles and chapters by Bill Carroll
Barnes (1961, 141) argue that social science's secular-cosmopolitan outlook has been facilitated,... more Barnes (1961, 141) argue that social science's secular-cosmopolitan outlook has been facilitated, both in history and in the biography of individuals, by "mental mobility": intercultural experiences (often arising out of actual migration) that unsettle local traditions, exposing their constructed character. As I reflect on my own career, this idea resonates, along with a parallel insight from Dorothy Smith: that the world we experience can be problematized, revealing how it has been made while suggesting how it might be remade. In "Remaking a Life, Remaking Sociology, " Smith (1992, 125) explains how, in the early 1970s, her engagement with the Canadianization and women's movements problematized the mainstream sociology she had learned in the 1960s at Berkeley. She underwent "a major personal and intellectual transformation, " out of which flowed her distinctive approach to sociology. In this chapter, I focus on my own personal and intellectual reconstruction beginning in the 1960s and extending into the 1980s, and briefly trace the ramifications in the sociological practice I have since pursued.
BRICS and the New American Imperialism Global Rivalry and Resistance, 2020
This chapter maps the transnational network of fossil capital as a formation of leading capitalis... more This chapter maps the transnational network of fossil capital as a formation of leading capitalists and their advisors, embedded within a global corporate elite. That elite forms one part of a wider imperialist order. I first bring a political ecology of fossil capital into a brief reconstruction of the eras through which imperialism has moved since the late nineteenth century. This sets the stage for a network analysis that explores how capitalist interests based in different locales, North and South, participate in the transnational network of fossil capital, and what the pattern of participation implies for imperialism today.
Socialist Studies, 2020
With the highest per capita carbon emissions among the G20, Canada presents the interesting case ... more With the highest per capita carbon emissions among the G20, Canada presents the interesting case of a climate laggard and, in some respects, a first-world petro-state. In these circumstances, a regime of obstruction, with a distinctive political-economic architecture, has taken shape. This regime is constituted through modalities of power that protect revenue streams issuing from carbon extraction, processing and transport while bolstering popular support for an accumulation strategy in which fossil capital figures as a leading fraction. It incorporates a panoply of hegemonic practices at different scales, reaching into civil and political society, and into Indigenous communities whose land claims and worldviews challenge state mandated property rights. This article first highlights findings from a six-year collaborative investigation of the modalities through which fossil capital's economic and political-cultural power is exercised at different scales, then outlines how the passive-revolutionary project of 'climate capitalism' is taking shape in the Canadian context as a response to climate crisis, and finally considers how a project of energy democracy, might hold the potential to catalyze the formation of an alternative historical bloc, opening onto eco-socialism.
Class, Race and Corporate Power, 2019
Keep it in the Ground - an original piece from Bill Carroll - features footage from various place... more Keep it in the Ground - an original piece from Bill Carroll - features footage from various places, worldwide – showing the extraction of carbon from the earth and the popular resistance to that, including student strikes, extinction rebellion, Ende Gelände, COP protests, Indigenous protectors and divestment. Musically, it’s sped-up hip-hop with marimba/vibes accompaniment.
This article reflects on recent scholarship that clarifies the trajectory and significance of the... more This article reflects on recent scholarship that clarifies the trajectory and significance of the transnational capitalist class (TCC) in the context of a global capitalism whose sharpening contradictions (if they are not creatively transmuted) portend the cumulative exhaustion of living labour and living systems. I attempt to clarify: 1) how key terms like global, transnational, regional and national apply within TCC formation; 2) how the distinction between a capitalist class in-itself and for-itself applies to the TCC; and 3) how insights from the Amsterdam School of transnational historical materialism, which embarked upon the first sustained research program on the TCC in the 1980s, can add nuance to our analysis. Although the world market has broadened and deepened and the circuitry of capital has become dramatically more transnational in the past half-century, as a class-for-itself, the TCC is a regional tendency that co-exists amid structures and practices of an era of capitalism fading but not extinguished – including massive north-south disparities (some of which have been intensifying through uneven development). A transnational capitalist and President at odds with the TCC script for global governance in a borderless world, Donald Trump personifies the liminal character of TCC formation in our time.
400 ppm is an eco-political music video which encapsulates climate crisis and climate justice in ... more 400 ppm is an eco-political music video which encapsulates climate crisis and climate justice in three minutes flat. It is an intervention in popular political ecology/economy, aimed at those who are uneasy with the increasingly obvious deterioration of the living systems of which we are an inextricable part.
What impact did the recent financial crisis have on the international network of the corporate el... more What impact did the recent financial crisis have on the international network of the corporate elite? Has the structure of corporate governance become more national or have transnational networks been robust? We investigate this issue by comparing the networks of interlocking directorates among the 176 largest corporations in the world economy in 1976, 1996, 2006 and 2013. We find that corporate elites have not retrenched into their national business communities: the transnational network increases in relative importance and remains largely intact during the crisis period 2006-2013. But this network does not depend – as it used to do - on a small number of big linkers but on a growing number of single linkers. The network has become less hierarchical. As a group, the corporate elite becomes more transnational in character. We see this as indicative of a recomposition of the corporate elite from a national to the transnational orientation.
The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire, by Leo Panitch and Sam... more The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire, by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, is an enormous achievement, a superb example of critical political economy steeped in the detailed analysis of history. Still, this book is not without its weaknesses, and like any rich analysis of a complex phenomenon it raises as many questions as it answers. In this review article I first take up what I take to be the weaknesses and then raise a few substantive and strategic questions.
In an era which has seen musings about the end of history, the fragmentation of the left into the... more In an era which has seen musings about the end of history, the fragmentation of the left into the many shards of identity politics, and the rise of postmodern cynicism as a new cultural dominant, can we even speak of the radical? To recover an authentic sense of the radical, we need to recognize its distinctive modalities, emergent in history, which have been incorporated into diverse practices that challenge hegemony. Four radical modalities may be distinguished: the resistant, the analytical, the prefigurative, and the subversive. What is needed is a robust radicalism that knits together all four modalities. It is in their reflexive, practical combination that these modalities gain real effectivity, not only objectively but subjectively.
Transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) are networks and centres within and around which ... more Transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) are networks and centres within and around which counter-hegemonic knowledge is produced and mobilized among subaltern communities and critical social movements. Based on in-depth interviews with practitioners at 16 TAPGs, this article presents eight modes of cognitive praxis and discusses how they appear in the work of alternative policy groups. The eight modes are not sealed off from each other, but overlap and interpenetrate. In combination, these modes of cognitive praxis strive to produce transformative knowledge concomitantly with knowledge-based transformation. The analysis evidences tracings of a double dialectic in the cognitive praxis of alternative policy groups: a dialectic of theory and practice, and one of dialogue. It is in a forward movement—fostering solidaristic dialogue among counterpublics in combination with the iterative integration of theory and practice—that alternative knowledge makes its indispensable contribution to counter-hegemony.
Global Economic Crisis and the Politics of Diversity, edited by Yildiz Atasoy, 2014
This chapter focuses on an emergent component of global civil society: transnational alternative ... more This chapter focuses on an emergent component of global civil society: transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) that research and promote democratic alternatives to neoliberal globalization. Since the 1970s, an increasingly crisis-ridden economic globalization has fuelled concerns in the global North that democracy is being hollowed out as governments lose capacity to pursue policies that stray from what has been called the corporate agenda, even as democratic forces and practices within a number of Southern states have recently strengthened due to pressure from below – as in Latin America’s ‘pink tide’ and the Middle East’s ‘Arab Spring.’ Indeed, as neoliberal globalization have reshaped the political-economic terrain, North and South, transnational movements have developed as advocates of a ‘democratic globalization’ that endeavours to enrich human relations across space by empowering communities and citizens to participate in the full range of decisions that govern their lives (Chase-Dunn 2002; Munck 2010; Smith 2008; Smith and Wiest 2012). Alongside and in symbiosis with these movements, TAPGs have emerged – ‘think tanks’ that research and promote democratic alternatives to the corporate agenda of top-down globalization.
As collective intellectuals of alter-globalization, these are think tanks of a different sort from the conventional ones that advise political and corporate elites. Groups such as the Third World Institute (ITeM, Montevideo), the Centre de recherche et d'information pour le développement (Paris), the Transnational Institute (Amsterdam), and Focus on the Global South (Bangkok) create knowledge that challenges existing corporate priorities and state policies, and that advocates alternative ways of organizing economic, political and cultural life. They disseminate this knowledge not only via mainstream media venues but through activist networks and alternative media, and they often work collaboratively with social movements in implementing these alternative ideas. This chapter provides a preliminary analysis, and addresses some of the challenges they face as transnational counter-hegemonic actors on the contested terrain of global civil society.
The urban centre of Vancouver, British Columbia has been a fecund research site for the study of ... more The urban centre of Vancouver, British Columbia has been a fecund research site for the study of capital, state, and social movement relations over the past three decades. In this article, we summarize the findings of our research program spanning that politically volatile period, and we reflect on the formidable, but not insuperable, obstacles to challenging the authority of global capital. We conclude that a 'transformative politics' articulated through a neo-Gramscian approach and rooted in a generative 'globalization-from-below' is the most promising basis for counter-hegemony today.
Cet article adopte une position de réalisme critique dans l'exploration des formes et des conditi... more Cet article adopte une position de réalisme critique dans l'exploration des formes et des conditions changeantes de l'hégémonie et de la contre-hégémonie des époques « postmodernes », « néo-libérales » et « mondialistes ». Les projets et les pratiques hégémoniques à l'heure actuelle rendent communément acceptées des politiques axées sur le marché et une culture fragmentée, leur infusant une organisation de consentement qui fonctionne à la fois au niveau local et au niveau mondial. Mais ceci ne constitue qu'une mince hégémonie, une base fragile, écologiquement insoutenable, de cohésion sociale et de reproduction matérielle. Si le fondement de l'hégémonie contemporaine, même périlleux, est profond, la contre-hégémonie se doit d'explorer ce fondement. Cette critique semble révéler l'articulation de divers courants subalternes et démocratiques-progressifs en un bloc contre-hégémonique qui articule les dissensions dans le temps et dans l'espace. La contre-hégémonie doit tenir debout, affronter les enjeux de l'État ainsi que ceux qui préoccupent les sociétés civiles nationales et transnationales. Sa durabilité au-delà des conjonctures exige non seulement une vision éthique commune, mais un contexte politique approprié à la tâche. La discussion porte sur une gamme d'évolutions récentes pertinentes à ces enjeux. La conclusion de l'article est une critique des politiques de singularités dispersées anti-hégémoniques, dont la perspicacité doit être intégrée à une forme stratégiquement cohérente, surtout quant à la valeur de l'action directe et de la préfiguration.
This article argues that humanity's prospects in the 21 st century hinge on the creation of a cou... more This article argues that humanity's prospects in the 21 st century hinge on the creation of a counter-hegemonic historical bloc within which practices and social visions capable of fashioning a post-capitalist economic democracy begin to flourish. The organic crisis of neoliberal capitalism creates openings for such a breakthrough; the deepening ecological crisis renders such a breakthrough an urgent necessity. The analytical challenge pursued here is to discern, in the contemporary conjuncture, elements of practice that might weld the present to an alternative future. How can new movement practices and sensibilities can be pulled into a historical bloc -an ensemble of social relations and human agency for democratic socialism; how might that bloc move on the terrain of civil society, and vis-à-vis states, opening spaces for practices that prefigure a post-capitalist world? These questions are too big for a single paper; the objective here is to show how a Gramscian problematic furnishes us with an analytical and strategic lens that can illuminate practical answers.
Social justice struggles are often framed around competing hegemonic and counter-hegemonic projec... more Social justice struggles are often framed around competing hegemonic and counter-hegemonic projects. This article compares several organizations of global civil society that have helped shape or have emerged within the changing political-economic landscape of neoliberal globalization, either as purveyors of ruling perspectives or as anti-systemic popular forums and activist groups. It interprets the dialectical relation between the two sides as a complex war of position to win new political space by assembling transnational historic blocs around divergent social visions -the one centered on a logic of replication and passive revolution, the other centred on a logic of prefiguration and transformation. It presents a sociological analysis of the organizational forms and practical challenges that their respective hegemonic and counter-hegemonic projects entail.
Since the 1970s, transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) have emerged as a component of g... more Since the 1970s, transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) have emerged as a component of global civil society, generating visions and strategies for a "globalization from below" that point toward post-capitalist alternatives. Here, we map the global network of TAPGs and kindred international groups in order to discern how TAPGs are embedded in a larger formation. In this era of capitalist globalization, do TAPGs, like their hegemonic counterparts, bridge across geographic spaces (e.g. North-South) and movement domains to foster the convergence across difference that is taken as a criterial attribute of a counter-hegemonic historical bloc? Our network analysis suggests that TAPGs are well placed to participate in the transformation of the democratic globalization network from a gelatinous and unselfconscious state, into an historical bloc capable of collective action toward an alternative global order. However, there are gaps in the bloc, having to do with the representation and integration of regions and movement domains, and with the salience of post-capitalism as a unifying social vision. Also, our architectonic network analysis does not reveal what the various relations and mediations in which TAPGs are active agents actually mean in concrete practice. There is a need both for closer analysis of the specific kinds of relations that link transnational alternative policy groups to other international actors, including intergovernmental organizations and funding foundations, and for field work that explores the actual practices of these groups, in situ.
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Journal articles and chapters by Bill Carroll
As collective intellectuals of alter-globalization, these are think tanks of a different sort from the conventional ones that advise political and corporate elites. Groups such as the Third World Institute (ITeM, Montevideo), the Centre de recherche et d'information pour le développement (Paris), the Transnational Institute (Amsterdam), and Focus on the Global South (Bangkok) create knowledge that challenges existing corporate priorities and state policies, and that advocates alternative ways of organizing economic, political and cultural life. They disseminate this knowledge not only via mainstream media venues but through activist networks and alternative media, and they often work collaboratively with social movements in implementing these alternative ideas. This chapter provides a preliminary analysis, and addresses some of the challenges they face as transnational counter-hegemonic actors on the contested terrain of global civil society.
As collective intellectuals of alter-globalization, these are think tanks of a different sort from the conventional ones that advise political and corporate elites. Groups such as the Third World Institute (ITeM, Montevideo), the Centre de recherche et d'information pour le développement (Paris), the Transnational Institute (Amsterdam), and Focus on the Global South (Bangkok) create knowledge that challenges existing corporate priorities and state policies, and that advocates alternative ways of organizing economic, political and cultural life. They disseminate this knowledge not only via mainstream media venues but through activist networks and alternative media, and they often work collaboratively with social movements in implementing these alternative ideas. This chapter provides a preliminary analysis, and addresses some of the challenges they face as transnational counter-hegemonic actors on the contested terrain of global civil society.
Regime of Obstruction aims to make visible the complex connections between corporate power and the extraction and use of carbon energy. Edited by William Carroll, this rigorous collection presents research findings from the first three years of the seven-year, SSHRC-funded partnership, the Corporate Mapping Project. Anchored in sociological and political theory, this comprehensive volume provides hard data and empirical research that traces the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry through economics, politics, media, and higher education. Contributors demonstrate how corporations secure popular consent, and coopt, disorganize, or marginalize dissenting perspectives to position the fossil fuel industry as a national public good. They also investigate the difficult position of Indigenous communities who, while suffering the worst environmental and health impacts from carbon extraction, must fight for their land or participate in fossil capitalism to secure income and jobs. The volume concludes with a look at emergent forms of activism and resistance, spurred by the fact that a just energy transition is still feasible. This book provides essential context to the climate crisis and will transform discussions of energy democracy.
Contributions by Laurie Adkin, Angele Alook, Clifford Atleo, Emilia Belliveau-Thompson, John Bermingham, Paul Bowles, Gwendolyn Blue, Shannon Daub, Jessica Dempsey, Emily Eaton, Chuka Ejeckam, Simon Enoch, Nick Graham, Shane Gunster, Mark Hudson, Jouke Huizer, Ian Hussey, Emma Jackson, Michael Lang, James Lawson, Marc Lee, Fiona MacPhail, Alicia Massie, Kevin McCartney, Bob Neubauer, Eric Pineault, Lise Margaux Rajewicz, James Rowe, JP Sapinsky, Karena Shaw, and Zoe Yunker.
In Organizing the 1%, William K. Carroll and J.P. Sapinski provide a unique, evidence-based perspective on corporate power in Canada and illustrate the various ways it directs and shapes economic, political and cultural life.
A highly accessible introduction to Marxist political economy, Carroll and Sapinski delve into the capitalist economic system at the root of corporate wealth and power and analyze the ways the capitalist class dominates over contemporary Canadian society. The authors illustrate how corporate power perpetuates inequality and injustice. They follow the development of corporate power through Canadian history, from its roots in settler-colonialism and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their land, to the concentration of capital into giant corporations in the late nineteenth century. More recently, capitalist globalization and the consolidation of a market-driven neoliberal regime have dramatically enhanced corporate power while exacerbating social and economic inequalities. The result is our current oligarchic order, where power is concentrated in a few corporations that are controlled by the super-wealthy and organized into a cohesive corporate elite.
Finally, Carroll and Sapinski offer possibilities for placing corporate power where it actually belongs: in the dustbin of history.
Throughout, we strive to make good on Marx’s suggestion that the point in socio-political analysis is not simply to comprehend the world but to participate in its transformation. A World to Win offers a wide-ranging collection of reflections and resources for engaged students and scholars who seek not only to interpret the world, but to change it. As Kurt Lewin, a founder of action research, claimed, there is nothing so practical as a good theory (Greenwald, 2012:99). Theory is what enables us to move beyond the concrete particulars of one specific situation, to see things in a wider context, to “connect the dots” between events in a meaningful way, opening the prospect for effective practice. To keep things centred upon the issue of praxis, my presentation below of contemporary perspectives in social movement studies is selective and attuned to their main implications for political practice. In this, I follow Saul Alinsky (1971), whose Rules for Radicals attempted to distil practical lessons for those coming of age in the 1960s wave of activism. But unlike Alinski, I use social science as a critical cognitive resource. Our praxis-oriented approach asks how theoretical insights can inform strategies for resisting hegemony and building counter-hegemony.
The eight chapters that follow offer insights gained from four years of intensive research into the production and mobilization of alternative knowledge. In year 1 (May 2011-April 2012), I identified key centres for such initiatives: transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) active in global civil society today. I completed a case study of each group using available sources from the Internet and elsewhere, and a network analysis of how the groups link up with each other, and how they are embedded in a broader field of social relations within global civil society.
Within this context of transformation, this book charts the making of a transnational capitalist class, reaching beyond national forms of capitalist class organization into a global field, but facing spirited opposition from below in an ongoing struggle that is also a struggle over alternative global futures.