It may be an over-simplification to conceptualize all the different interests in terms of class struggle , particularly as some of the interest groups involved and some of the alliances of interests forged may defy analysis in conventional Marxist terms .sx Nevertheless , there are class interests involved even though they may not always conveniently reduce to one labouring class versus one capitalist class .sx The transnational capitalist class , fractions of the labour force , and other support strata that the TNCs have created , will all increasingly identify their own interests with those of the capitalist global system and , if necessary , against the interests of their 'own' societies as the transnational practices of the system penetrate ever deeper into the areas that most heavily impact on their daily lives .sx The specific function of the agents of transnational political practices is to create and sustain the organizational forms within which this penetration takes place and to connect them organically with those domestic practices that can be incorporated and mobilized in the interests of the global capitalist system .sx In order to do this the transnational capitalist class must promote , outside the First World heartlands of capitalism , a 'comprador' mentality throughout society .sx 'Comprador' mentality .sx A comprador mentality is the attitude that the best practices are invariably connected with the global capitalist system .sx Comprador mentality is either a 'cost' or a 'benefit' and whichever way we look at it we are bound to beg a very important question .sx This is the point at issue in the ideological struggle between those who believe that TNCs will inevitably damage Third World development prospects in the long run , as against those who believe that there will be no development prospects without the TNCs .sx This struggle revolves around opposing material interests of competing classes and groups in all countries .sx There are those who see the destiny of the Third World as bound up with the adoption of all that is 'modern' , often embodied in the products and practices of the TNCs .sx On the other hand , there are those who are deeply suspicious of the modernization represented by the TNCs , particularly where this is perceived as Western or US dominance in culture , industry , warfare , science and technology .sx This is a field riddled with dilemmas .sx Modern warfare and the modern economy , for example , require increasingly higher levels of technology and this cannot be avoided if any state wishes to participate , or if threatened , survive in the contemporary world .sx A battery of concepts , some of which have migrated from social science jargon to the mass media , identify those on either side of the divide .sx The academically discredited distinction between traditional and modern is now common currency , while the notions of inward-oriented and outward-oriented describe those who look for guidance and sustenance to the resources of their own groups as opposed to those who look outside , usually to the West .sx Much the same idea is expressed by the distinction between local and cosmopolitan orientation .sx As it is , more or less by definition , an extra-First World phenomenon , the question of the comprador mentality will be resumed in the next chapter .sx It is difficult to think productively about 'modernization' for many reasons , not least the problem of what is appropriate in the adoption of innovation .sx The proper approach to development lies , no doubt , somewhere between a slavish attachment to all things foreign and an atavistic distaste for any type of change .sx An illustration of how appropriate choices for the different groups and classes in the capitalist global system can and do change is provided by the analysis of counter movements to the global capitalist project .sx These are movements that aim to undermine the power of the TNCs , and the transnational capitalist class , and to force people to think critically about the ways in which the system as a whole promotes the culture-ideology of consumerism .sx Counter movements .sx Although the agents of global capitalism are firmly in control and the TNCs are clearly the dominant institutional force , there are , as we approach the millennium , two counter movements that could represent real threats to the global capitalist system .sx The first , rich country protectionism , comes from within global capitalism , but in the form of national as opposed to systemic interests .sx The second , the Green movement , is a very widely based and variegated collection of individuals and groups that includes those on the fringes of the global capitalist system as well as some who are fundamentally opposed to it , mainly from the libertarian left but also from the authoritarian right .sx Protectionism Protectionism is , of course , not a new phenomenon .sx Indeed , the most potent argument against it may be that we know only too well how protectionism contributed to the great depression of the 1930s .sx Nevertheless , as the World Bank and other august proponents of the perpetual increase of global trade never tired of reminding us throughout the 1980s , many First World countries began to step up protectionist measures in that decade .sx The free entry of goods ( particularly consumer goods ) from abroad has never been a feature of global trade .sx Restrictive measures have been directed at Third World manufacturers whose electronic and electrical products , garments , shoes , toys , sporting and household goods were said to be unfairly flooding vulnerable First World markets .sx The interesting twist to this issue is that it was Japan , clearly now a First World country , and in the opinion of many now the most dynamic economic power , that was often identified in the United States and in Europe , as the worst offender , with the four East Asian NICs not far behind .sx The tendency to protectionism is increased by the belief that a substantial part of TNC manufacturing industry is 'footloose' .sx Transnational corporation production tends to be globally integrated into vertically organized production processes .sx Offshore plants tend to be financially controlled from abroad , they tend to be rented rather than owned , and their managers tend to have cosmopolitan rather than local perspectives .sx All of these factors weaken the ties that such businesses have with the communities in which they are located and make it less difficult for them to close down and/or relocate if and when business conditions deteriorate in one country relative to other countries .sx This happens in the First World as well as in the Third World .sx For example , Hood and Young ( 1982 ) document the closure of several old established US firms in Scotland to seek cheaper production sites elsewhere .sx The mobility of the TNCs , the job losses that usually follow , and the identification of 'cheap imports' with goods previously produced at home , increase protectionist pressures among labour and small domestic capitalists alike .sx While protectionism as a transnational political force appears to have little likelihood of success in the foreseeable future , the threat of it is ever present as a reminder that the orderly progress of global trade in the interests of the TNCs has to be maintained and those who transgress will be punished .sx This works both ways .sx First World markets are open to Third and Second World goods only as long as their markets are also open to First World goods and , increasingly , services .sx Protectionaism is not a serious counter movement to global capitalism because if it was successful it could do great damage to the system and , ultimately , destroy it .sx All parties realize this , and so protectionism acts as a bargaining counter for the rich , and a bluff for the poor , and mainly comes to life in its use as a rhetorical device to satisfy domestic constituencies .sx For example , desperate politicians tend to fall back on it to appease working class voters in the United States and the United Kingdom .sx The Green movement is much more serious , actually and potentially .sx The Green movement .sx With the sole exception of the global communist movement , the Green or environmentalist movement presents the greatest contemporary challenge to the global capitalist system .sx This is paradoxically confirmed by the fact that both capitalist and socialist economists , politicians and ideologues are increasingly trying to jump on to the Green bandwaggon and to appropriate its policies for themselves .sx This is not surprising , because although capitalists and socialists are usually reluctant to spell out their plans of global domination , Green politics are largely based on a straight - forward conception of planet earth and what needs to be done at the global level to sustain human life on it .sx The key threat that Green politics poses to the capitalist global system is in the matter of the consumption of non-renewable resources .sx While Green politics are based on the belief that the resources of the planet are finite and have to be carefully tended , global capitalist politics are based on the belief that the resources of the planet are virtually infinite , due to the scientific and technological ingenuity released by the capitalist system that will ensure unlimited replacement or substitution of resources as they are used up .sx Green politics are closely connected with the emergence of a critical consumer movement .sx The idea of consumerism has experienced an important dialectical inversion in recent years .sx It is commonly used in two senses .sx In this book I use it to denote an uncritical obsession with consumption .sx It is , however , also commonly used in an opposite sense , as in the consumer movement's version of consumerism , to denote suspicion of consumer goods , a wish to know more about how they are produced and who produces them .sx This version of consumerism can lead to a radical critique of consumption .sx To minimize confusion , I shall use consumerism where I mean the first , and the consumer movement to denote the second .sx Kaynak ( 1985 , p.15 ) defines the consumer movement " as a movement seeking to increase the rights and powers of buyers in relation to sellers " and presents a useful historical account from the first cooperative society , founded in Scotland in 1769 , to the present .sx He connects the rise of consumer movements in different countries with the position of the country in the world market , but from a marketing rather than a political economy point of view .sx His discussion of consumer movements in the Third World , however , does confuse the two meanings of consumerism .sx Food riots in North Africa , he writes , " are examples of what LDC consumers are concerned with - the right to consume " ( ) .sx But this misses the real distinction between diametrically opposed beliefs based on entirely different conceptions of the satisfaction of human needs .sx Thus , it is to the culture-ideology of consumerism , and how it is broadcast in the global capitalist system through a variety of transnational practices , that we must now turn .sx Cultural-ideological transnational practices .sx There are many who argue that the key to hegemonic control in any societal system lies not in the economic nor in the political sphere , but in the realm of culture and ideology .sx Those for whom this idea is a novelty may be surprised to learn that is was the writings and political practice of a Marxist , and a communist militant at that , which were largely responsible for the present currency of this view among radical thinkers .sx Antonio Gramsci , who spent most of his adult life in one of Mussolini's prisons , elaborated on Marx's insight that the ruling ideas of an epoch are the ideas of its ruling class , to create a theory of hegemony and a theory of classes of intellectuals whose function it is in any literate society to propagate or to challenge these leading ideas .sx Gramsci's Prison Notebooks represent not only a stirring monument to the human spirit under adversity , but a significant turning-point in the history of Marxist ideas and their relevance for the twentieth century .sx This is partly because in the sphere of culture and ideology the material conditions have changed to such an extent that what Gramsci was arguing about hegemonic processes in the 1930s has become more , not less , relevant today than it was then .sx To put the point graphically , while Marx and his nineteenth-century comrades would have no great difficulty in recognizing the economic and the political spheres today , despite the major changes that have undoubtedly taken place in the last hundred years , in the cultural-ideological sphere the opportunities for hegemonic control on a global scale have changed out of all recognition .sx