Corporations employ a great
proportion of the world's inhabitants (workers) who find themselves for the most
part engaged in profitable labour whose end-product is thought desirous by
another large proportion of the world's inhabitants (consumers). The entire
process may be seen as converting raw materials into something generally
regarded as useful and beneficial. Corporations have risen in extent and
importance over the decades and the laws which previously constrained their
development have been relaxed somewhat to allow, particularly in the case of the
larger corporate entities, for vertical integration, the consolidation of supply
chain linkages and the internationalization of their activities through the
promotion of the principles of free trade. What could be inherently wrong with
such a seemingly sensible arrangement?
A corporation simply put is just a highly organised and disciplined form of mass labour whose ultimate success rests upon the competence of it's executive, middle management, blue collar components, and to some degree, it's investors. If we hadn't got corporations we would have to think of some other way of organising ourselves into a form of labour that would ultimately produce similarly constructed outfits - differing in name only and all to achieve precisely the same ends - unless we are content to down tools and allow ourselves starve to death. To obtain precious metals from the soil such as gold, platinum, zinc, or copper; specialist machines would still have to be constructed and experts trained. Trucks would still have to be dispatched and workers hired to collect, distribute and refashion the raw material. All of these activities would have still to be recompensed in some fashion - for who could labour for any duration without being provided the means to sustain himself.
Were it not a 'corporation' sustaining and ultimately controlling this network of activities it would have to be something else which perforce would necessarily carry many, if not all, of the corporation's basic characteristics. In addition, of course, corporations require a surplus fund of capital to pay their workers, maintain and enhance operational infrastructure (R&D), and generate and sustain long-term markets for their produce (advertising).
Should we, on top of all this, expect corporations to somehow evolve a 'moral compass' attuned to human rights and the long-terms needs of the global ecology. Obviously not, for the successful avoidance of such concerns is precisely what gives each corporation their all-important marketplace edge. Those who do not fully exploit all the available opportunities for attaining the cheapest form of labour, raw materials and the means of effectively distributing their end-product will inevitably fold into oblivion. This is life led in the raw. It is at once pure, beautiful and true - as it arguably corresponds to our most basic instinct - the innate need to obliterate and destroy, - properly called 'Thanos'.
No-one who has spent anytime meditating the facts of human nature, evolution, and the growth of civilizations can have any doubts as to the general truth of this proposition (surely). Properly cornering the market, trapping one's prey, yielding an outrageous profit, is in a psychological sense indistinguishable to surrounding the enemy, offering desultory terms, pauperising them, then laying waste to their homeland. An act intoxicating to the victor, an obscenity for the victim and one which will exert a macabre attraction on the neutral - who finds himself torn between admiration and disgust amidst the the warring polarities of his own 'Eros' and 'Thanos'.
So this is capitalism pure and simple - the triumph of the martial energies of the death instinct. There are creative components of the psyche deployed in weaving one's way through the marketplace but ultimately here Eros is superseded. And, since Thanos is an innate instinct which cannot be erased or programmed out of our systems we must banish it somewhere and a 'globalized competitive business model' is as good a place as any, for the present - and certainly superior to entrusting it to the military complex - from whence it is only just emerging. In time too, hopefully, as the species evolves and attains greater awareness the 'corporate model' itself will become outmoded, wind itself down and spill Thanos into a thousand benign tributaries, destined to be absorbed by all-encompassing Eros - which begets all the principles of responsible governance.
Institutions once in place cannot be soon unravelled and recommenced. In the West's evolved systems of parliamentary democracy we have found the natural home of 'our' Eros - they offer a counterfoil to the knowing destructiveness of capital - ideally it should tweak its growth, constrain it's energies, and, to a certain extent, reallocate it's surpluses - but 'Capital's 'dynamism' shouldn't be misconstrued to the extent that it is conceived and promoted as 'leading the way' - it should rather be recognised for what it is, a force blind and amoral - true responsibility can only lie in the executive branches of government. The problem with the events of the post-soviet collapse is that Capital, facilitated by the international financial institutions, used this opportunity to extend itself unchecked into the domain of vulnerable emergent economies in addition to creating for itself a globing trading environment governed by rules written by its own officials and almost exclusively geared to promoting it's own interests.
In the short term, this was beneficial for Fortune 500 and their investors but it's insane to think that this fickle whirlwind of investment and retrenchment can be allowed twist and turn unchecked about the globe. A globally mobile unfettered Capital urgently requires a strong international executive - somehow composed of reasonably 'disinterested' characters - Plato's philosophers would be nice - who have preferably eschewed narrow national considerations and are prepared to commit to the larger picture. Is this happening already - are there international arenas with wise counsels deliberating with the confidence of all the globe's governments? - all I hear of are G8s, G77s, BRICS, and divisive security council vetos. Capital has been let loose, and what really are the means available to shackle it?
A corporation simply put is just a highly organised and disciplined form of mass labour whose ultimate success rests upon the competence of it's executive, middle management, blue collar components, and to some degree, it's investors. If we hadn't got corporations we would have to think of some other way of organising ourselves into a form of labour that would ultimately produce similarly constructed outfits - differing in name only and all to achieve precisely the same ends - unless we are content to down tools and allow ourselves starve to death. To obtain precious metals from the soil such as gold, platinum, zinc, or copper; specialist machines would still have to be constructed and experts trained. Trucks would still have to be dispatched and workers hired to collect, distribute and refashion the raw material. All of these activities would have still to be recompensed in some fashion - for who could labour for any duration without being provided the means to sustain himself.
Were it not a 'corporation' sustaining and ultimately controlling this network of activities it would have to be something else which perforce would necessarily carry many, if not all, of the corporation's basic characteristics. In addition, of course, corporations require a surplus fund of capital to pay their workers, maintain and enhance operational infrastructure (R&D), and generate and sustain long-term markets for their produce (advertising).
Should we, on top of all this, expect corporations to somehow evolve a 'moral compass' attuned to human rights and the long-terms needs of the global ecology. Obviously not, for the successful avoidance of such concerns is precisely what gives each corporation their all-important marketplace edge. Those who do not fully exploit all the available opportunities for attaining the cheapest form of labour, raw materials and the means of effectively distributing their end-product will inevitably fold into oblivion. This is life led in the raw. It is at once pure, beautiful and true - as it arguably corresponds to our most basic instinct - the innate need to obliterate and destroy, - properly called 'Thanos'.
No-one who has spent anytime meditating the facts of human nature, evolution, and the growth of civilizations can have any doubts as to the general truth of this proposition (surely). Properly cornering the market, trapping one's prey, yielding an outrageous profit, is in a psychological sense indistinguishable to surrounding the enemy, offering desultory terms, pauperising them, then laying waste to their homeland. An act intoxicating to the victor, an obscenity for the victim and one which will exert a macabre attraction on the neutral - who finds himself torn between admiration and disgust amidst the the warring polarities of his own 'Eros' and 'Thanos'.
So this is capitalism pure and simple - the triumph of the martial energies of the death instinct. There are creative components of the psyche deployed in weaving one's way through the marketplace but ultimately here Eros is superseded. And, since Thanos is an innate instinct which cannot be erased or programmed out of our systems we must banish it somewhere and a 'globalized competitive business model' is as good a place as any, for the present - and certainly superior to entrusting it to the military complex - from whence it is only just emerging. In time too, hopefully, as the species evolves and attains greater awareness the 'corporate model' itself will become outmoded, wind itself down and spill Thanos into a thousand benign tributaries, destined to be absorbed by all-encompassing Eros - which begets all the principles of responsible governance.
Institutions once in place cannot be soon unravelled and recommenced. In the West's evolved systems of parliamentary democracy we have found the natural home of 'our' Eros - they offer a counterfoil to the knowing destructiveness of capital - ideally it should tweak its growth, constrain it's energies, and, to a certain extent, reallocate it's surpluses - but 'Capital's 'dynamism' shouldn't be misconstrued to the extent that it is conceived and promoted as 'leading the way' - it should rather be recognised for what it is, a force blind and amoral - true responsibility can only lie in the executive branches of government. The problem with the events of the post-soviet collapse is that Capital, facilitated by the international financial institutions, used this opportunity to extend itself unchecked into the domain of vulnerable emergent economies in addition to creating for itself a globing trading environment governed by rules written by its own officials and almost exclusively geared to promoting it's own interests.
In the short term, this was beneficial for Fortune 500 and their investors but it's insane to think that this fickle whirlwind of investment and retrenchment can be allowed twist and turn unchecked about the globe. A globally mobile unfettered Capital urgently requires a strong international executive - somehow composed of reasonably 'disinterested' characters - Plato's philosophers would be nice - who have preferably eschewed narrow national considerations and are prepared to commit to the larger picture. Is this happening already - are there international arenas with wise counsels deliberating with the confidence of all the globe's governments? - all I hear of are G8s, G77s, BRICS, and divisive security council vetos. Capital has been let loose, and what really are the means available to shackle it?
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