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Westward ho? The shifting geography of corporate power in Canada
Journal of Canadian Studies, Winter 2002 by William K Carroll
This paper maps the changing network of large Canadian corporations in the half-century following the Second World War, using location of corporate head offices as a window on the geography of corporate power. In this era, the network of interlocking directorates was reshaped by several developments: consolidation of corporate headquarters in major metropolitan zones, the decline of Montreal and the increased importance of Toronto as the principal metropolis, the movement of industrial capital westward and concomitant rise of Calgary and Vancouver as corporate command centres, the nationalist politics of Quebec, which led some major corporations to defect from Montreal while nurturing a FrenchCanadian segment of the corporate elite, and the continuing hegemony of Toronto and Montreal in the world of corporate finance. By the close of the twentieth century, the Canadian corporate elite appeared to be well integrated across the main urban centres of economic power, across the financial and industrial forms of capital, and across the anglo-French ethnic difference. Viewed in light of related research on the elite's reach into civil society, this pattern of spatial, sectoral and ethnic integration presented a structural basis for strong business leadership in both economic and extra-economic fields. Whether such corporate hegemony is ultimately compatible with a democratic way of life is altogether another matter.
En utilisant l'emplacement des sieges sociaux de grandes societes commerciales canadiennes comme mesure du deplacement du pouvoir corporatif, cet article indique comment le reseau de ce pouvoir s'est modifie au tours des cinquante annees qui ont suivi la fin de la Deuxieme Guerre mondiale. Pendant cette periode, le reseau des conseils d'administration integres a evolue sous l'effet de plusieurs evenements, A savoir le regroupement des sieges sociaux dans les grandes regions urbaines; le declin de Montreal et la montee continue de Toronto comme principale metropole; le deplacement du capital industriel vers l'Ouest et l'accession de Calgary et de Vancouver au rang de centres de pouvoir corporatifs qui s'en est suivi; les politiques nationalistes du Quebec qui ont, d'une part, pousse certaines importantes societes commerciales A quitter Montreal et, d'autre part, donne naissance A un segment canadien-francais au sein de l'elite corporative; et la domination persistante de Toronto et de Montreal dans le monde des finances. A la fin du 20e siecle, l'elite corporative canadienne parait bien repartie entre les grands centres urbains du pouvoir economique, entre le capital financier et le capital industriel, et entre anglophones et francophones. Lorsqu'on l'examine dans le contexte de la recherche sur la presence de F&ite; dans la societe civile, cet exemple d'integration spatiale, sectorielle et ethnique constitue une base structurelle permettant au monde des affaires d'exercer un grand leadership tant dans les domaines economiques qu'extraeconomiques. Quant A savoir si une telle hegemonie corporative est compatible avec un mode de vie democratique, c'est une toute autre question.
Since the publication of The Vertical Mosaic in 1965, the structure of corporate power has been a recurrent concern in Canadian studies. Major statements published from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s (Clement, "Elite," Clement, "Power"; Niosi, "Economy"; Niosi, "Capitalism"; Carroll, "Power") inspired in recent years specific and comparative investigations (Ornstein; Carroll and Lewis; Richardson, "Free Trade"; Carroll and Alexander). Yet, despite a recognition of the importance of spatialized relations in the new Canadian political economy, what we might call the "geography of corporate power" has not been systematically charted. This paper maps the changing network of large Canadian corporations in the half-century following the Second World War, using the location of corporate head offices as a window on the geography of corporate power.
Head office location matters broadly in the political economy of corporate capitalism in a number of respects. As De Smidt points out, "a head office is the decision center of a firm, the home base of management. Hence, cities with a concentration of head offices may be considered management centers" (148). Urban zones that attract and retain major corporate offices tend to reap employment and investment spread effects, even if new business structures have often meant a decentralisation of management activities and an increase in the contracting out of corporate services (Marshall and Raybould). Particularly in an era of the "global city" (Brenner), the fate of any given locality is in part tied to its success in the interurban competition not only for investment funds but over the siting of corporate command centres (Beaverstock and Smith).
Head office also matters specifically in the structuring of the corporate elite the relatively small group of leading corporate directors who actually command major capitalist enterprises. Corporate networks are formed when the directors of some corporations sit on the boards of others, creating interlocking directorates. Such relations are "traces of power" (Mokken and Stokman) in both an economic and a social sense. On the one hand, links between corporations at the level of governance enable some measure of intercorporate coordination and control of the accumulation process; on the other hand, such ties integrate leading directors into a corporate elite sharing a common outlook and capable of exercising political and cultural leadership in civil society (Sonquist and Koenig). A company's head-office location has an obvious bearing on its access to directors: large metropolitan centres offer head offices "ease of interorganizational face-to-face contacts, business service availability, and high intermetropolitan accessibility" (Pred 177). The tendency in advanced capitalism for major corporate head offices to gravitate to the largest metropolitan areas has meant that corporate elites tend to be highly clustered within a relative few urban zones - the command centres of the world system and of national economies within it. In this way, the spatial pattern of corporate head offices has imposed "a marked centralizing influence" on the space economy (Coffey and Bailly 865). The well-researched case of the US provides a good example. Numerous studies have identified New York as the hub of a spatial network of interlocking directorates that also includes semi-national subnetworks, particularly around Chicago, and various regional groupings (Sonquist and Koenig; Green and Semple; Bearden and Mintz; Kono, et al.).
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