A & Human P

How do interlocks effect the integration of the Australian capitalist class? Here it is argued that the sociological study of interlocks (that is, the links created by a director who is on board of more than one company or organization) reveals some but not all dimensions of corporate power. The study of directional interlocks (using only board members from primary organizational positions) reveals the following traceries of power: first, a map showing inter-firm power links; second, these links also indicate the direction of the flow of corporate information; third, the links indicate which sector (e.g. productive, financial or service) is at the political centre of business relations. In the Australian big business case studies (1992 and 1998) chosen to illustrate the centrality of interlocks it is shown that industrial companies dominate the formation of top corporate social links. It is hypothesized that the most heavily interlocked director is a ruling class leader who acts to ingratiate the capitalist class with the state, but interlocking directorates also act to integrate the ruling class as a whole and to keep the class positioned advantageously in regard to its global objectives. Triangulation of the interlock material with both interviews and company ownership data shows some support for this. The most significant finding is the observance of two levels of power; the first is political and is reflected in the clusters of industrial interlocking company directorates, and the second is economic, in which the ubiquity of finance capital gives it dominance and control over the former. Key word