TRANSNATIONAL CAPITAL

Financial and political power of transnational corporations as a group.

"Globalisation is a means for exclusion, deepening inequality and reinforced division of the world into core and periphery: it is a new form of Western imperialism which dominates and exploits through TNC capital and instrumental global governance such as the World Bank and IMF."
(Begg, H., Globalisation: Marginalisation of the Poor, International Debate Education Association, 2001, visited 2009-09-21)

"Members [of this class] are predominantly, although not exclusively, drawn from developed countries – the dominant group is made up of the owners and controllers of the major corporations – the globe-trotting, jet-setting TNC executives. To these we can add globalizing bureaucrats and politicians, globalizing professionals (with particular technical expertise – even including some academics), merchants and media people. Without questions, these are the winners in the global economy."
(Dicken, P., Global Shift: Reshaping the Global Economic Map in the 21st Century, 4th ed., New York: Guilford Press, 2003, p. 515)

Transnational capital wants to move about and maximize its profit without being impeded by national barriers, national laws, policies and customs. So it wants minimal or no political intervention in its affairs.

Free capital is seen as the driving force of the advanced market economy.

"Capital in the form of the TNC has acquired many home countries. Transnational capital functions are based on (and are under the influence of) the interests of not only the corporate headquarters of the home country, but also the corporate headquarters of the countries where a TNC operates. Such processes have created a web of global corporate and economic interests, which often lie beyond the control of the nation state or any nationally functioning organization."
(Tsogas, G., Labor Regulation in a Global Economy, London: M.E. Sharpe, 2001)