Corporatism. See you guys Wednesday…
You’re kinda addicted to the detail thing, aren’t you?
Oh well, can’t accuse me of burying the lead. So, here goes:
Like every good little political scientist, we start with definitions. Since I’m a cranky old political scientist, we skip all the boring stuff and just hit the highlights. When I am talking about globalism I’m just talking about the economic version. The political version is probably not nearly as long for this world as it would like to think but that’s a discussion for another day.
Corporatism is just a pseudo-governmental rule by corporations. For the record, we aren’t in a true corporatist world but not from the lack of trying on the part of the modern corporation. They all wanna be the East India Company of two centuries ago. Ain’t gonna happen. Is gonna be a pain, however.
You can’t watch YouTube without a video, usually Peter Zeihan, asserting that globalism is on its last leg. I agree that the current form is in flux and will likely change, but the economic and political benefits of being able to trade freely are just too great. The US will grumble – a LOT – but the US Navy will stay on station.
That’s not to say the process will be pretty or that mistakes won’t be made. We’re humans, mistakes are what we do! NATO will be stretched past its breaking point once Russia and China cease to be significant. Convincing the US Taxpayer that they should shoulder the entire bill for world security will be a non-starter. Fireworks will ensue.
But once the yelling stops, the US benefits from having placid neighbors, especially since this planet is the only neighborhood we’ve got. Little wars tend to grow up to be big wars so unless we wanna live in a world on fire, the US will have to tend to the neighbors for a good while yet. Keeping the seas safe for trade is more than worth the hassle compared to having to fight yet another world war. Nah, skip that.
The exact form will change. The Royal Navy will have to dust off its fleet. Other nations will have to cooperate. New treaties, new regulations, new headaches, but the seas will remain safe. Well, as safe as they get.
So no, I don’t think the economic form of globalism is even sick. let alone dying. It’s about to change clothes but it’s not going anywhere.
Corporatism, however, is in critical condition and doesn’t even know it. Corporations thrive in free economies. They do not do so well in major political upheavals. The upheaval in progress is gonna be a doozy and I don’t see multinationals coming out unscathed.
See, the underpinnings of industrialization and the information age have shifted. The need for huge amounts of capital to manufacture goods or to host warehouses of servers is diminishing. It won’t go away completely – some things can only be done effectively at the industrial scale – but it is changing fast.
Storage, the bane of computer existence for decades, is now dirt cheap. Servers, once unaffordable for anything but a large company, are now in household range. Three dimensional printing, once a hobby with plastics is coming into its own in metal and ceramics. Laser cutters are in home workshops as are computer controlled CNC’s both for metal and wood.
Remember when you could only publish a book through a publisher? That kind of revolution is in progress with manufacturing. It’s not just the office worker who can work from home now. Why ship a product across the country when you can upload the plans to a local manufacturer and cut out most of the transport costs? Hobbyists are doing this already with plastics.
The Cottage Industrial Revolution has begun. It won’t happen overnight, but it’s well underway. The truth is, we no longer need huge corporations to fuel the capital growth. For less than a hundred bucks you can start a YouTube channel. Forget the silly influencer stuff – a few thousand is all it takes to start a home office business that would put to shame the same business thirty years ago run by a corporation. Physical manufacturing is catching up and is likewise affordable to the middle class.
It turns out we don’t need our corporate overlords. The fun part is how they will find out. It won’t be the gradual loss of business; it will be the rapid loss of political influence.
See, government can afford to play with industry when the world is relatively peaceful. But the US can’t play when she has to pay attention to an international disaster brewing. Russia and China want our attention and they are getting it. Corporations are on the losing end of that. As attractive as a cushy lobbyist position is even the dumbest rep knows that they need to be in office long enough to ‘earn’ that spot. That is really hard to do when government is expected to do its job and you’re playing with your corporate dance partner instead.
Hilarity ensues as does being ousted from office. It doesn’t take much to focus a congressman’s attention, just a colleague or two getting the boot.
It probably won’t get that dramatic. Getting elected isn’t for the faint of heart and those guys aren’t total idiots. Usually, anyway. The point is that congressional lover boy is going to be getting out of bed with most of his corporate affairs.
THEN the loss of revenue starts to kick in. It is expensive to hire a bunch of lobbyists and consultants, more so when those hires are mere payback for services long since rendered. Economic downturns and lost revenue to competitors will do the rest. Bye-bye giant corporation! Howdy downsized company!
And yes, I think ESG is going to hasten this process quite a bit.
It’s gonna be a bumpy ride but it should be one for the record books.
