Big business and directorship networks: the centralisation of economic power in Australia

Abstract

This paper studies the largest 250 companies in Australia in the early 1990s and their network of interlocking directorates. It examines the institutional profile of Australian big business and the impact of globalisation. It finds that international capital has not, as yet, made major inroads into the core of Australian big business although global finance capital has had a major impact on its mode of operating. It argues that the greatest area for structural change is the privatisation of government-owned enterprises. Following the precedents of US and international studies the paper then explores key features of the theory of financial hegemony. The paper uses network analysis of interlocking directorships to assess the centrality of banks and the direction of ties among big businesses. Australian banks are heavily interlocked and 'attract' executives of other companies to their boards but they do not constitute the core of the intercorporate network as in the US. As outlined by Australian scholars the systemic conditions of capitalist hegemony in this country involve uncritical acceptance of big business leader ship. These conditions privilege all large, Australian public companies (the 'private sector') as the core institutions of class power. Centralisation and hierarchy within big business parallels these conditions of public culture.