Thursday 22 June 2023
Corporatism
Jeffrey Tucker has an interesting TCW piece on corporatism. Interesting because we need a word to nail down global political trends and many of the old words don't do that. Written from a US perspective.
A Genealogy of Corporatism
It’s not capitalism. It’s not socialism. The new word we are hearing these days is the right word: corporatism. It refers to the merger of industry and state into a unit with the purpose of achieving some grand visionary end, the liberty of individuals be damned. The word itself predates its successor, which is fascism. But the eff word has become totally incomprehensible and useless through misuse so there is clarity to be gained by discussing the older term.
Consider, as an obvious example, Big Pharma. It funds the regulators. It maintains a revolving door between corporate management and regulatory control. Government often funds drug development and rubber stamps the results. Government further grants and enforces the patents. Vaccines are indemnified from liability for harms. When consumers balk at shots, government imposes mandates, as we have seen. Further, pharma pays up to 75 percent of the advertising on evening television, which obviously buys both favorable coverage and silence on the downsides.
I don't think a genealogy can ever be comprehensive enough, but the trend towards corporatism is real enough. Mussolini would have understood it. The whole piece is well worth reading.
That is only the beginning of the problems. Corporatism abolishes the competitive dynamic of competitive capitalism and replaces it with cartels run by oligarchs. It reduces growth and prosperity. It is invariably corrupt. It promises efficiency but yields only graft. It expands the gaps between rich and poor and creates and entrenches deep fissures between the rulers and ruled. It dispenses with localism, religious particularism, rights of families, and aesthetic traditionalism. It also ends in violence.
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Snippets from Wikipedia:
The Hanseatic League was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Even at its zenith, the Hanseatic League was never more than a loosely aligned confederation of city-states. It lacked a permanent administrative body, a treasury, and a standing military force. By the mid-16th century, these weak connections left the Hanseatic League vulnerable...
I've argued before that the EU was the New Hanseatic League; it seems like the pharmacological/industrial complex in the USA is going the same way, and the corporate leagues are running together like blobs of mercury. They're not making the mistake of not building stronger permanent administrative body, a treasury, and a standing military force on a global basis though.
It's going to be tough to stand apart from the global corporatism.
Well the account certainly appears to correspond to events viz the behaviour of the social media and net providers; the actions of government and the drug companies during the Covid crisis; and the machinations of th EU.
It's worth taking a look at this excellent UnHerd piece:
https://unherd.com/2023/06/brexit-has-stumped-our-zombie-elites/
Corporations have much the same relationship to our state as the EU and other supra-national entities. They confer glamour, some undoubted expertise for a ruling class who are useless classicists or managerialists, share the work-load, and make the politicians less accountable.
They make money, eliminate competitors, and gain state-sanctioned indemnity.
It's a win-win, if we disregard the public.
DJ - running together like blobs of mercury is a good analogy. It seems to be significantly impersonal, as if global communication causes interests to align themselves and powerful individuals are for the most part riders of a trend. It could still branch out in unpredictable ways though.
Tammly - yes and it's probably an aspect of what we are as social beings. People pursue their own interests and altruism doesn't have much influence on it.
Sam - thanks, I've bookmarked the link. People with talent don't seem keen on joining those useless classicists or managerialists, but are willing to make use of them from outside. The ruling class seems to attract people without enough talent to sell it in an open market. It's not easy to see what could be done about that.
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