Wealth exists now mostly as an accumulation by people who control the world's huge corporations. The limited liability company started as a good idea to enable men to spread their risks. As such it has been extremely successful and created huge amounts of true wealth. Most have benefited from it. The corporation was set up under and remained under the control of he state - and the state is the only organisation we know of that can protect the rights of the individual. Indeed, the very purpose of the state is to protect the individual. Very few honest men need anything from the state but protection, but protection is the one thing that is absolutely vital to their freedom.
But the mega corporations which now spread their operation across the world are a different matter entirely. The trans-national corporations set up their operations in whichever country they choose and will give them the best deal with regard to minimum control and taxation. There are plenty of counties both desperate enough and corrupt enough to give them whatever they want.
having secured a very low cost base they then use their enormous wealth to subvert and corrupt other governments into subsidising them to provide low-cost manufacturing plants. The growth of the container shipping industry to ship product and the World Wide Web to enable instant communications of all and any type and technology to hide their stock in trade means it matters little where on the globe they manufacture. They go where the slave wage labour rates are the lowest.
Many of the companies have now reached the stage that they can manufacture a vast range of goods without much labour at all. They thus make massive profit which accrue to a very small number of people. This give those few a massive advantage in the market so that they can - and do - eliminate any competition. This is not a matter of comparative advantage - it is a total wipe-out of competition because their potential competitors have to suffer outrageous legislative burdens imposed by those developed countries, which are the only ones potentially capable of developing competition, but whose governments acted deliberately to join with the meg-corporations in destroying small businesses.
The mega corporations do not give a damn about national legislation. If any government tries to enforce it against them they simply go elsewhere - or hire mighty and expensive lawyers to find dodges and excuses for them. The effect of this has been to destroy productive industry and much reduce the potential standard of living of the working people.
Wealth is created by taking elements out of the ground and turning them ito useful products. Thus can be done by farming or mining followed in each case by a complicated and diverse series of manufacturing activities and huge supporting services. Within this scheme almost all men can find and play a remunerative part. But the gathering into themselves of a huge part of the knowledge and competence to perform these tasks, and their subsequent protection by multiple abuses of secrecy and patents makes it virtually impossible for any individual to succeed outside their sphere of influence. You pay homage to them or you starve.
You may find my descriptions excessive but I have watched whilst, over the last thirty years, a country which once had thousand of thriving, competing, innovative, exiting and successful small and medium sized enterprises has given them all away to exceedingly greedy mega-corporations.
The real danger here is that the only organisation that can secure our rights, our government, is subservient to these corporations also. Because of this no government one earth can any longer guarantee the rights of its citizens. The danger in this cannot be stated too strongly. You are now a slave - whether you know it or not - you do whatever the big guys say or you will suffer in some serious manner. if you are unfortunate enough to live in Africa or many other places you may well starve. Even in western countries you will find your jobs destroyed or moved abroad. If you own a small business, s single stoke of a pen within a mega corporation can destroy your business. Do not try to appeal to the law of your country - it is effectively owned by the multi-millionaire corporations which can afford to buy it.
So who is to blame for this foul situation? You are! You have allowed your elected government to licence these corporations to pursue their evil ends in the manner described above. The corporation is a, or was, a function of the state. The state licensed it to do a job and , quite correctly, set the the terms of that licence. The corporation has enormous advantage in matters of lack of liability, protection from the law and protection from taxation that few, if any, private individuals enjoy. The government has obviously failed to make the terms of licence sufficiently strong to ensure that companies do not grow out of their control
Consider the mega corporation as a separate life form for that is what it is. it enjoys almost all of the rights and advantages enjoyed by individuals but has almost none of the duties that a private citizen has. it is bound to succeed and, ultimately, destroy any and all individuals that it chooses. The only, largely token, control over any company is its shareholders but as any company can buy back its own shares it is quite possible for a company to exist as a separate legal entity, generating and disposing of massive financial assets but without any control over it by any other body on earth. i suggest to you we may already have effectively ranched this very dangerous situation. We have let loose amongst us a true Frankensteinian monster.
12th May 2012
Colin Walker