Elites in Their Real Lives: A Chilean Comment on Robinson

Abstract

William Robinson's article provides a suggestive framework to understand the relation between development and elites under globalization. Following his previous work, the core of his argument states that globalization represents an epochal change in capitalism (from corporate to global capitalism or from world to global economy). We are present, then, to a change in capitalism from a nation-state to a transnational model of accumulation and from national to transnational class relations.These changes, Robinson argues, have generated new fractions among national elites in the developing countries: nationally oriented and transnationally oriented elites. These two types of elites support two different strategies of development based in two different forms of accumulation: national industrialization and markets integration. He frames the argument in a context of sharp transformations of the class structure and a renewed struggle for control of the state in those countries.Robinson makes a significant contribution from a macrostructural perspective. He clearly shows how globalization can be a new source of conflict among elite groups, and what the consequences for development are. Particularly, what the implications of the predominance of transnational capital in developing countries are, and how this process is related to the implementation of a neo-liberal agenda.His argument is very welcome because it coincides with a revival of elite studies in Latin America during the last decade. In the region, the relation between development and elites has long been a major issue in social science. Indeed, elites themselves have always been obsessed with the idea of progress and modernization.Recently different scholars in the region have started to analyse the transformation of elites under globalization. Some authors have stressed the rise of a new elite in the state -the technocratsrelating them to the implementation of neo-liberal policies (Maihold, 2007;Silva, 1991). Others have suggested that dominant sectors in Latin America are involved in a double process of expansion of the weight of transnational capital and transnationalization of different fractions of local capital (Basualdo and Arceo, 2006). There is no doubt, then, that contemporary Latin American elites are rather different than the traditional elites described by different authors in the influential

O solo movediço da globalização: relações de trabalho na Vale S.A.

“…Para Robinson (2013), esta conclusão deve-se ao nacionalismo metodológico destes autores, que organizam os dados empíricos nacionalmente, em vez de verificar, por exemplo, os enormes fluxos de comércio intrafirma. Outros, como Madrid (2012), buscam elementos empíricos para avaliar a pertinência de aspectos da tese sobre o capitalismo global: para o autor em questão, analisando o caso chileno, há uma antecipação temporal ao conflito entre quadros técnicos "modernizantes" que adotaram a ideologia neoliberal e a classe dominante nacional; além disso, haveria uma confluência contemporânea entre a classe capitalista orientada transnacionalmente e a classe dominante mais tradicional no Chile. Entretanto, não seria este justamente um sinal de que a transnacionalização foi bem-sucedida?…”