The two faces of capital: Corporations and individual capitalists as political actors

Widespread access to public records of campaign contributions by corporate political action committees (PACs) have made these the preferred data for a nalyzing political partisanship within the capitalist class. By comparison, data on political contributions by individual capitalists were, until rece ntly, difficult to obtain and rarely subjected to systematic study. Importa nt differences are demonstrated between these two forms of capitalist polit ical action by directly comparing the campaign contributions of 592 individ ual capitalists with the contributions of the 394 major corporations with w hich those capitalists were associated. Campaign contributions by individua l capitalists follow a logic different from that of corporate PACs. Corpora tions are generally more interested in buying influence with incumbents, wh ile individual capitalists are more concerned with bolstering the election prospects of favored candidates. By providing a more direct measure of capi talists' political preferences, the analysis of campaign contributions by i ndividual capitalists clarifies theoretical questions that remain unresolve d in the research based on corporate PACs. Variables that elude measurement when corporations are the units of analysis (e.g., ethnicity) are shown to have important consequences for capitalist political partisanship.