The coming century will be The Rise of Corporations and the Downfall of Nations

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

We are about to have a very long and drawn out national discussion about the role of government. The same one we have had for decades between Liberals and Conservatives about the benefits of "small" vs "big" government. It can be reframed as Corporate Governance vs. Federal Governance. Only this time around the Supreme Court decision of Citizens United has heavily weighted the discussion to the advantage of one side.

There are those that would tell you that almost all the functions of government can be outsourced and privatized and performed in the "free" markets and by private enterprise at lower cost and to the benefit of the citizen taxpayer. These benevolent backslappers would have you believe that they only want to save you a few bucks and make a few bucks for themselves. They argue against government oversight and regulation as needless beau racy, they are perfectly capable of self-regulation, to not self-regulate would be "bad business".

We have enough historical and recent proof that business is NOT capable of self regulation, although we need to learn the same lessons over and over due to generational amnesia. We can look at meat-packing, banking, and a host of other examples.

Is the role of government to protect us from predatory capitalism which often poisons us, impoverishes us, uses us and discards us or is the role of government to protect them from US and our (now) unreasonable demands for safety,security,living wages, and the like.

In the scales weighing the concerns of People vs Profit, in our nation at least, Profit is winning every time. We saw that demonstrated conclusively in the so-called "debate" over HealthCare Reform. The Citizens United Decision makes law what we knew anyway - corporate dollars and concerns, due to their sheer volume (now expanded to the nth degree)will always trump.

To take where we are going to its logical conclusions, the Corporations will prevail in any new or existing "debate" of any importance. Our schools WILL be privatized as will Social Security , Medicare and any other government program that currently exists. All Utilities including the water we drink will be privatized. Local and state police forces will be privatized. All deeds transferred in the future will convey mineral, air and water rights to others. Internet will be metered use and only approved sites and bloggers will be admitted - probably "membership only". Our prisons are well on their way to being completely privatized. Our justice system was already successfully politicized if not privatized in a previous administration with no adverse consequences.

In this Libertarian/Conservative/Teabagger vision of the future, with small or non-existent government and oversight, these private companies are Responsible to NO ONE but themselves and their shareholders.

If we dislike version of the future,we can always try to retire quietly to our own private worlds as long as we remember that we only possess our own land now until someone bigger and better connected desires it.


The very last bastion of Nationhood will be National Security. Even this, which one would have thought in previous generations as being the one inviolate sacrosanct function of government, will be privatized. We have already gone down this road in Iraq and Afghanistan where the private forces are close to matching the national forces.

But, where does this transformation FINALLY end? It ends with the sudden realization, Hey! since governments no longer plays any role anyway, why do we even bother to have NATIONS at all? A meeting of the United Nations will be a Meeting of the United Who Cares?

Of much more import will be the meetings of the conglomerated consolidated multinationals who really run the planet. The only thing of interest to us serfs will be how much of a private life will we be allowed and what will the quality of that life be?

Just like the old subtle curse, we do indeed live in interesting times. Good day and good luck.

[Junkdrawer]

1. The UN will need to behave more like the US Senate....

IMHO, the US Senate is now the place where policy disputes between corporations are settled.

For example, in the health care debate, deals were cut between the insurance companies, hospitals and Big Pharma. The Senate HCR bill reflects the resultant compromise.

US based multinationals will compete with Chinese, Japanese, German etc. based multinationals. They will need a body to resolve disputes.

[Capt_Nemo]

2. Wrong, and here it is why:

This is a problem exclusively of the US and, to a lesser extent, of the industrialized West.

In countries like Russia and China, Mega Corporations are firmly under control of the state
and are a strategic arm for their geopolitical games.

What has happened is that, in the West, Reaganism/Thatcherism have not only obliterated
the state´s strategic planning capability - ushering in a weak (from a geopolitcal perspective)
feudal like structure in opposition to their strong central strategic control -
but now in the case of the US, as a consequence of the SCOTUS decision, the "fortress
gates" have been wide opened for those countries' "corporate armies" to take over.

Game, Set, Match.

The comming decades will still be dominated by nation states but, instead of
the industrialized west, by powers like China and Russia.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

8. I've your post acouple of times and I suddenly get your point.

You are saying that nation-destroying inherently selfish corporatism has taken root primarily in the West and that over the long haul you're putting your money on the still centralized, nationalized regimes of China and Russia.

I don't discount that. That is one reason that so many see the Supreme Court Decision Citizens United allowing companies to buy politicians and elections as really a matter of National Security at its core and your post validates that view (which I share, which is why I have called for impeachment of the Supremes based on the fact that I feel they have aided and abetted the abiliy of foreign companies and governments to meddle in our internal affairs.)

Instead of being a centralized SuperPower like China in the future, we will more resemble Afghanistan, run by warring conglomerates each with their own self-serving lackeys in the government with no unified national purpose or identity.

Thanks so much for a really interesting counterpoint to my OP.

[Capt_Nemo]

15. Yes, it is pretty much that.

In fact something like this occured in Europe in the transition from
the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

Feudal states either consolidated into nation states, or were absorbed, or defeated by nation states,
since the later were much better at designing their development strategy
and much less vulnerable to their adversaries.

Nowadays in China if they find out an official is bribed by foreign interests, he gets shot
in the US, if this ruling stands, such official will get re-elected.

[DisgustedInMN]

3. K & R

[SpiralHawk]

4. The 'century' will be over and transformed by 2023

"I'd bet a sack of doughnuts on it. Big Corp gonna go through Big Changes.

"The Bigger they come, the harder they fall -- one and all."

-SpiralHawkstradamus

[leveymg]

5. What transformational event? Why 2023 instead of 2012 or 2001 or 1984?

The "big bang" theory of the future has been foretold many times, but still this sad human race trudges on in the yoke, much like it did at the time of the Robber Barons, Queen Elizabeth or the Pharaohs. Why change now?

[stellad]

6. And nations will be bailing them out

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. I was about to rebut that with the comment "With what? Nations will be defunded" but then

I had one last insight. Nations or the shell of nations will continue to exist for one purpose and one purpose only - the ability to TAX!

There will still need to be a way to drain off any last remaining resources individuals may have been attempting to hoard for some self-serving, short-sighted purpose like food and shelter or unneccessary luxuries like education.

[glitch]

9. And slave labor will resurface in a big way. nt

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[glitch]

11. I know. That's why I used the word resurface. It will become much more common, much more "accepted"

You know, like treason and war crimes are already. Right now most people don't even know about it. But when it starts affecting the former middle class they will.

Excellent link, thanks for posting it.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

13. The former middle class could find themselves arrested for being homeless

like a link yesterday was about. Arrested, sent to prison, surprise, they can't make bail, off to be another cog in the prison industrial complex.

[glitch]

16. And there it is. If it's excepted in Boulder without outrage it will become common practice.

The idea of allowing, and subsidizing, for-profit prisons in the USA is yet another metastisized cancer.

[anonymous171]

12. They won't get rid of nation-states. They like their armies too much.

[laughingliberal]

14. Rec nt

[lunatica]

17. What will happen to the corporations when no one is able to buy?

If no one has the income, because they work for either slave wages or are truly just slaves without an income, who buys health insurance to keep those corporations rich (just as one example)?

How will they squeeze blood out of 6.5 billions turnips?

Even if your prediction happens it will take much less than a century for corporations to destroy themselves simply because they've destroyed their ability to get richer by destroying people's ability to afford anything.

[glitch]

18. They'll pass a law mandating the purchase of their product. nt