Why would a global institution ever do the same? It'd have no loyalty or ability to be affected by the majority of the world it ruled, simple case of geography. A nation state can be readily abused by corporate interests, yeah I'd agree with you, but I'll take that over a system designed by corporate interests. Dividing and conquering a nation is exceedingly difficult when it's one nation of one mind and culture - I very much subscribe to the Frankfurt school's discovery that the only thing people will be more willing to fight and die over than economics, is culture. Corporations can hold all the money in the world but it can't buy a nation's ability to marshal its own culture or forces. Assuming globalization was carried about by nation states and not by corporations somehow, which is not happening any time soon given that globalization is carried out through economic mechanisms, the world would have no unifying culture with which to rally around. All it would have are shallow identity politics, the very same shallow identity politics used by corporations to divide consumers into marketable, powerless and complacent groups. Just compare neoliberalism to any other ideology in the West or East; Western neoliberal ideology is built around dividing itself into atoms, and building itself into groups to attack itself, building up meaningless boundaries to have perverse pleasure in transgressing them, repeat ad infinitum whilst expanding the power of corporations with deregulation and privatization. That's what corporate globalization looks like, how is that stronger or working against them?
Simply put, the nation state is the largest social unit in which people can still be altruistic, look out for one another and fight off international predators. Rushing to globalization is just falling into corporate hands, it is surprising to even know how on earth we got into the point where corporate-led globalization is a thing. Your President is wise here:
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
-Abraham Lincoln
When you have nation states that are encumbered with too much corporate influence, small people are still large enough to effect change, leading to such cases as this:
For decades, Britain's bankers have relied on their industry's outsized status in the economy to find a receptive ear in government.
But in the aftermath of the country's vote to leave the European Union, the sector that generates about a tenth of national economic output is grappling with an uncomfortable new reality where economics doesn't always trump politics.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-city-idUKKCN12O0H1
I'm not asking you to agree that Brexit or Trump were the right choices, only that they represent successful revolt being possible. Contrast that with pan-national entities like the EU where all of their protests mean complete jack shit and have done a grand total of fuck all, and any time they opposed EU centralization they just got ignored.
And then who do they serve?The vast majority of meetings between lobbyists and senior EU commission staff are dominated by corporate interest.
Transparency International’s Brussels-based office on Wednesday (24 June) said three-quarters of the 4,318 meetings declared since December and June this year are with people from big companies like Google and lobby group BusinessEurope.
The insights are published on TI’s integrity platform and provide a detailed overview of who lobbied the most, on what issues, and with whom.
“There is a strong link between the amount of money you spend and the number of meetings you get,” said TI’s Daniel Freund in a statement.
Companies with big lobby budgets and with interest in energy, finance, and digital portfolios have much greater access when compared to civil society, he says.
Meanwhile, only 18 percent of the declared meetings were held with NGOs, followed by 4 percent with think tanks, and two percent with local authorities.
2%. Now imagine how even less fucks a global state would give to locals. Corporations take a look at things like national healthcare and see a threat to their profits, people take a look at their national healthcare and see their literal lifeline - and it's clear to see that when you remove the pillar of the nation state and you leave behind only the State, the people can do nothing when the Corporation holds undue sway in the State. Economics wins when there is no room for culture, the "nation" component is so important in "the nation state"
30,000 lobbyists and counting: is Brussels under corporate sway?
From mobile phone charges to nations' interests, these shadowy agitators are estimated to influence 75% of European legislation
When the Polish MEP Róża Thun was elected five years ago, she thought the job would be fairly straightforward. She hadn't reckoned with the lobbyists.
Take mobile phone charges. She saw the fact that EU citizens pay eye-watering sums in other EU states as an anomaly that needed fixing. But it wasn't that simple. "We had telephone companies and lobbyists who started to invade us," she recalls. "They obviously didn't want to reduce roaming charges because it would hit them in the pocket."
To stroll around the vast, ugly and permanent building site that is Brussels' European district is to brush up against the power of the lobbies. Every office block, every glass and steel construction within a kilometre of the European commission, council and parliament is peopled by Europe's biggest corporate names.
Thousands of companies, banks, law firms, PR consultancies and trade associations are there to bend ears and influence the regulations and laws that shape Europe's single market, fix trade deals, and govern economic and commercial behaviour in a union of 507 million.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/lobbyists-european-parliament-brussels-corporate
I recognize nation-states are just almost as vulnerable to lobbying, corruption and corporate dominance, but I argue that it is so much easier to fight back with national democracy - it is not impossible to change your nation, whereas disgruntled ants cannot change the world order. That is the difference, dense clusters of like-minded people can revolt, spread out across the world trying to change the entire world versus the entire world, only money can do that, and money all lies in the hands of few
That said I reckon globalization will continue and there will one day be a global federal nation-state. However I caution that it cannot be corporate-led. I am determined that the nation-state remains for this century the model for prosperity, security and welfare, and it will in time be made obsolete. As the cost of militaries increase, increasingly fewer nations will be able to afford them, banding together in common defence pacts that conduct their own foreign policy as one, until there is no need for foreign policy. These nations will band together along common cultures, becoming greater cultures, looking for the welfare of their people first and foremost. This is indeed, what I had hoped the EU would have been, but the project was started too early, too dishonestly. In conclusion, that is why I think supporting corporate-led globalization will not break corporate power, but will instead help them consolidate it over the world.
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Topic: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: T+0 (Read 1394597 times)