Transnational enterprises and the internationalization of capital in Brazilian industry

In a careful analytic movement from the genera) to the particular, the authors seek to clarify the complex and controversial phenomenon of the internationalization of capital. In the first part, after briefly reviewing the main theories in this area, they characterize the central aspects of postwar capitalist expansion in the centres; this expansion is analysed in various stages, beginning with the hegemony of the United States immediately after the war, through the period of expansion of the subsidiaries of transnational corporations (TNCs) originating from the United States, Europe and Japan, continuing with the national responses to this ‘American challenge’ and the differentiation among the centres, and culminating in the crisis of recent years which is causing the breakdown of the international order.