Are corporations and not countries our new societies?

[ar81]

Some interesting ideas that surfaced after a debate with some people.

Corporations are like countries but they do not have a territory.
You may have noticed that you have the obligation of attach to corporate culture more than the corporation adapts to local culture.

Countries do not exile citizens. Corporations do when people are fired.
People with no money and no job are exiled from society, for they do not share the benefits of living in a society.

So if you do not belong to society, your survival strategy needs to change to predatory behavior.

So it seems that more important than having a nationality and citizenship, belonging to a company is more important than belonging to a nation.

And you can anticipate a future when corporations are as powerful as countries, so they will rule and countries will obey. Your loyalty will have to be with corporations, or you are fired.

Corporations are monarchies, you only enjoy democracy in the street. So it is likely that democracy becomes irrelevant in the future.

What do you think?

 

[Xantcha]

nah.. countries are countries - they have land, army and tax collectors
When corporation gets all three of the above it just becomes a country.

 

[Bill LeClere]

You should read Thomas Pynchon, if you haven't yet. Corps( ese) are out of control countries.

 

[Ghostrider]

Dunno, but I never got fired by a country. Mind you, I never got a paycheck from one, either.

 

[Bill LeClere]

Well I didn't get fired, but I got a paycheck from the US. Didn't bounce, suprisingly.

 

[n0mad23]

Might want to look up fascism to see why the question's important.

 

[dougkeenan]

There are no wars. There is no crime. There is only ... Rollerball.

 

[Master of Blades]

[...]
Countries do not exile citizens.
[...]

Oh yes they do, several countries (Sweden included) exile citizens, can't remember any specific case at the moment, but I know it still is being done.

 

[GregBurch]

Wow, dude, that's like really heavy! We need to stick it to the man!

Seriously -- don't like working for someone else? Find an unmet need, start your own business.

 

[Bill LeClere]

Start your own country....in your head. Sorry--I'm in a grumpy mood today.

 

[Andy44]

First of all, define your terms. The definition of society is not the same as the definition of country.

 

[Ghostrider]

There are no wars. There is no crime. There is only ... Rollerball.

Good one. Rollerball (the one with James Caan) is probably the first movie to really take on that SF meme, which has been around since PK Dick at least.

 

[ar81]

Wow, dude, that's like really heavy! We need to stick it to the man!

Seriously -- don't like working for someone else? Find an unmet need, start your own business.

Imagine a powerful multinational lawyers corporation is created.
You would be a minor competitor.
They could offer more services and better deals than an independent lawyer.
Or they could offer the experience of the corporation, so they could ask plenty of experts inside the company to have better legal advise...
Then they come to you and say "join us".
You refuse.
So they start competing with you.
They do not want competitors, not even small ones.

One of those days you have no choice but to join them.
As you join, you will have to embrace their rules, their schedule, their culture.

If an entire country has most of people working for corporations, you may wonder which culture will prevail. If corporation has a culture that is not the culture of your country, what will you do? Will you quit your culture?
If we think that corporations become more powerful than countries, it is likely that at some point you would have conflictive interests. If at some point you have to decide about following an order of the corporation that betrays your country or be fired and spend some months looking for a job in a world dominated by corporations, what would you do?

Will CEOs have the responsibility of a president regarding employee welfare? Or will you become a discardable and replaceable tool of corporations to make money? What if they need to lower costs? Will corporation be loyal to you or will they fire you?

I was wondering about this, after I watched Robocop again.

 

[GregBurch]

Imagine a powerful multinational lawyers corporation is created.
You would be a minor competitor.
They could offer more services and better deals than an independent lawyer.
Or they could offer the experience of the corporation, so they could ask plenty of experts inside the company to have better legal advise...
Then they come to you and say "join us".
You refuse.
So they start competing with you.
They do not want competitors, not even small ones.

...

I was wondering about this, after I watched Robocop again.

Well, I'm not at all sure you're serious, since we're apparently talking about political ideas from a lowbrow Hollywood craptacular, but the short answer to the first part is this: Competition in my business as a lawyer is an everyday occurrence. There can be competitive advantages in being big ("multinational lawyers corporation") but, believe me, there are also advantages in being small. There's no simple answer -- sometimes the big guys win because of their advantages and sometimes the little guys win because of their advantages. The same is true in just about any human endeavor you can imagine.

But if we want to stay on the level of Robocop, then go ask the 19 year old in the Che t-shirt who's taken a half semester of political science. He has all the answers.

 

[ar81]

Well, I'm not at all sure you're serious.

I just exploring opinions on how people see that future.

In the past I had a tough time working for government in the past, for I was harassed as politicians got involved in a scandal with a French corporation. My exboss went to jail, and I would have gone too if I had not resisted. Resisting was the ethical way to go, but it is overwhelming to withstand months of political harassment.

It seems that someone at corporation decided to make devotion to corporation to be more important than devotion to country.

 

[Jarvitä]

Corporations give you paychecks, countries tax you on everything from birth to death.
Corporations can fire you when you're no longer necesarry, countries provide welfare if you can't get a job (well most of them do)
Corporations get rid of you and disassociate themselves with you if you do something wrong, countries attempt to rehabilitate you and reintegrate you into society
And most importantly, you change corporations if you get a better paying job. You're born into one nation and you're proud to be a part of it for the rest of your life.

I fail to see a correlation here?

 

[ar81]

Corporations give you paychecks, countries tax you on everything from birth to death.
Corporations can fire you when you're no longer necesarry, countries provide welfare if you can't get a job (well most of them do)
Corporations get rid of you and disassociate themselves with you if you do something wrong, countries attempt to rehabilitate you and reintegrate you into society
And most importantly, you change corporations if you get a better paying job. You're born into one nation and you're proud to be a part of it for the rest of your life.

I fail to see a correlation here?

Probably it is because in poor countries, government work like corporations. So nobody does the job of government.

 

[GregBurch]

Probably it is because in poor countries, government work like corporations. So nobody does the job of government.

Yes -- corrupt governments treat the societies they govern as their property.

But doesn't your observation suggest that the place to look for the causes of the problems you talk about is in the flawed governments, and in the functioning of the societies that tolerate them, rather than in "corporations"?

 

[tomek]

The way I see it is, government is the organization created by the people of the nation to protect their interests. Corporation is an organization created by a group of individuals for profit. Corporations are not created for enforcing corporate culture on its employees. In fact, corporations themselves have rather limited means of enforcing you to do anything. Corporations are regulated by the government, which (ideally) is regulated by the people - including people who work for corporations. So in the end, it's up to the people to determine how they are treated.