This will be a down and dirty diary. A discussion about different forms of capitalism in my last diary-- small businesses, industrial/factory capitalism, corporate capitalism, etc) inspired me to reflect on what's unique about corporate capitalism. There, my fellow kossack wrote:
Where I see a difference is since the rise of corporations, legislation has been written to protect their greedy behaviour. Their greed and abuses and corruption is legislated as a necessity. Because it is a legal necessity, governments actively protect them and help them because they see those "harms" as being legal and, worse yet, important for everyone.
Again, maybe I'm splitting hairs. But I honestly do believe that while capitalism as a system has some abuses, there always seems to be some of a balance. INdividuals can be prosecuted and held accountable. Under corporatism, the companies themselves are "persons" which is intentionally specifically to avoid accountability. Which is why so many corporations can break the law without concern. Can't hold any individual accountable in most cases, and the fees for the company are often smaller than the profit potential.
I don't disagree with him, though because I'm an irritating twerp, I do think the situation is considerably more complex than he suggests here. Follow me below the fold to find out why.
I don't at all disagree that there are differences between types of capitalist business. There's a world of difference between small ma and pop businesses, and the big factory businesses (that were not corporations!) characteristic of the last century. There's a big difference yet again between industrial capitalism and corporations. The nature of the problem and the strategies required to deal with those problems differ from type to type.
While I completely agree that the sorts of laws my fellow kossack outlines are a huge problem, I also think this simplifies things a bit. One of the most disturbing things about these corporate entities is that they're no longer nationally bound. In other words, corporations have become something that is akin to nation-states in that they are not tied to any particular geography, while not being like nation-states in that they're not accountable to any particular public (a corporation can take its ball and go elsewhere when it doesn't like the rules of a nation, but nation-states like America, India, China, etc, cannot). This has a huge impact on national politics.
With the rise of multi-national corporations, the global stage completely changes. Time was when the global stage simply consisted of nations. Within this framework, there was global politics that was a matter of international relations between nations and then national politics that was a matter of what took place inside a nation. Businesses were squarely located inside nations-- even where they engaged in international trade --and therefore could easily be regulated by the laws of a nation.
The emergence of multi-national corporations changes all of this. Now 1) the global stage is populated both by nations and multi-national corporations, and 2) multi-national corporations are something like sovereign entities (just as nations are sovereign entities). The weird thing about multi-national corporations is that they're not really tied to any nation. To be sure, they set up operations in various countries and do business in various countries. And to be sure, because they operate in various countries they must contend with the laws of the countries where they operate. Nonetheless, there's a huge difference. Where the traditional business was bound by the laws of the country that housed it, the multi-national corporation can always take its ball and go elsewhere because it's no located in any particular place to begin with.
This allows multi-national corporations to exercise tremendous political influence. Because of their "non-citizenship" to any particular country, they can perpetually use the threat of going elsewhere as a form of extortion with regard to the countries where they do operate. Let's adopt the perspective of a national government or a politician to see how this works. The goal or aim of the politician is to get elected and maintain his office. To do that, of course, he needs votes. To get those votes, he needs a citizenry that's happy with how things are going in the sense that they have jobs, wages, etc.
This is the secret of multi-national corporate power. Recognizing the manner in which politicians are dependent on votes to maintain their office, and how whether or not the politician gets those votes, depends, in large part, on whether people are working and have a livable wage, the multi-national corporation can use the threat of moving operations elsewhere as a way of extorting government to enact laws and policies that are in the interests of the multi-national corporation rather than the politician's constituents. In my last diary I described this as a "Faustian bargain". The politician says "I don't like these policies at all, but maintaining some jobs is better than maintaining no jobs because if jobs disappear then I don't get votes and lose my office. Therefore, I'll enact this crappy legislation both to save my own skin and for the sake of my constituents having some jobs even if their labor rights, etc., disappear."
The point I'm trying to make is that the laws themselves aren't the central problem. I agree with my fellow kossack that they're a huge problem. There's no debate there. But the more fundamental problem is the "ecology" or how the global field has changed and the new forms of power those changes render possible. Back in the 60s we used to say "all politics is local". There's a very real sense in which today this has reversed itself. Now it would be more accurate to say "all local politics is global."
This suggests some rather gloomy conclusions. First, it entails that participation in national politics is no longer sufficient. Because national politics is so heavily structured by these global economic dynamics arising from the emergence of multi-nationals, most national political problems cannot be addressed outside a global context. In this regard, the situation is similar to that that workers faced under industrial capitalism. Workers, like everything else, competed with each other for finite jobs. One worker would be willing to do the same job for a lower wage and would use this as a strategy for getting the job. The problem was that this style of competition between workers led to a situation where wages continued to plunge to the bottom for everyone. At a certain point, they realized that they only way they could advance their own interests was by banding together or organizing, collectively refusing to take jobs at a lower wage. Well today we face a similar situation at a global scale. So long as one nation is willing to welcome multi-nationals by providing them with a business environment with fewer regulations, benefits for workers, lower wages, etc., the multi-nationals will be able to exercise this sort of blackmail on politicians. Nations need to band together and refuse this sort of economic warfare if things are to change. There's a huge question as to just how to accomplish this.
On the other hand, the preceding analysis suggests that getting all worked up over which party is in power or which politician is elected, doesn't matter for much concretely. To be sure, on cultural issues, democrats are far more preferable than republicans. However, on the economic issues, politicians of both parties find themselves in the same situation of extortion and have to make similar decisions to maintain their office and jobs for their constituents. The republican party might pursue this race to the bottom at a faster rate, but the trajectory of decision making is largely the same for both parties because both are compelled to make decisions in this ecology of extortion. In this regard, party politics is a bit of a smoke screen that distorts what's really going on. We end up thinking the issue is one of competing ideologies or beliefs systems, when in reality it's a situation of extortion. The question is that of how to change this situation so as to make truly efficacious politicians possible. I wish I had the answers, but I don't. I do think, however, that understanding the nature of the problems is the only way to eventually find those answers.