How did corporations become subordinate to nation states...

How did corporations become subordinate to nation states? Why aren't there any corporations that are independent of governments? Why don't we have megacorps?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_the_Dominican_Republic_(1916–24)
web.archive.org/web/20120717004708/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/santamarta.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
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States create the legal framework upon which corporations rests.

Also corporations do not have that magical power that states possess: taxation.

In addition, corporations cannot fund military forces of their own. You could talk of PMCs all day but in the end these are just upjumped security guards.

Well, I'll start off with, Corporations don't hold territory and don't have the military apparatus to hold territory if they did. The Nation State tells the Corporation, "Play by our rules or you can't play inside our territory."

>How did corporations become subordinate to nation states?

Since always, they have never not been. If anything the rise of globalism has weakened the state's control over corporations to an unprecedented degree.

>Why aren't there any corporations that are independent of governments?

How would they do business?

>Why don't we have megacorps?

Give it time, they are coming.

>implying corporations need to be independent
Running a government is hard and expensive...
Much better to influence the politicians so you can profit immensely than to do their job.

Do you not know anything about what is proposed by the TPP?

Nations are made of exactly that, corporations.

You would have a large family with subfamilies etc running large areas, ending up with large militarys to defend their resources and then at last borders.

The people within the borders work for the corporation(monarchs) running the country.

because megacorps in practice have been a bad idea, so anti-trust laws are put in place to prevent too much monopoly and political clout from one company to encourage competitive markets and keep all lobbying out of the hands of one entity.

if you want an example of a megacorp, the East India Company is your best window into what it would look like. Ultimately, it was detrimental to the region as a whole for the amount of power it exercised, with enough political clout to start entire wars just so they could sell addictive drugs to China.

Walmart

Corporations are the aristocracy vying for power not the monarchy itself

Why indeed chummer. Why indeed....

Powerful enough corporations simply turn themselves into states.
The EIC says hi.

The EIC used the British army, the whole point of it was giving indian Rajas a pre-made army to oppress their "peoples" with

really? why are you placing the monarchs above the aristocrats? they can both be part of corporations... how do you not see that?

The EIC only started using the British army in the 19th century. For most of its existence, it was drawing upon its own mercenaries exclusively, and kept doing so to a pretty major extent all the way to the Sepoy Mutiny.

>PMCs are just security guard
Only because of the laws surrounding mercenary work. I'm sure you've heard of the Swiss and German mercenary companies of yore.
There have been more recent forces like the Pinkertons and Executive Outcomes that were straight up soldiers for hire. Executive outcomes had a decent arsenal that included attack helicopters, armored vehicles, and planes. If the international community hadn't stepped up to pull them apart they would have grown much larger.

Late 20th century african history is such a clusterfuck jesus christ

>EIC
>A state company.
Hi.

Also we are talking about the modern world here? Premodern Military systems are chump change even for the time. There's a reason why the US 2nd Amendment regarding the Militias is a thing: since it allowed bodies of private men with their own weapons to fall in with the US Regular soldiers to form the US military. So Presidial Armies aren't quite hot shit.

Oh yeah, fucking sure, lets run a first world tier military based on profit earnings & capital alone. Surely these would stand against Military Industrial Complexes powered by both profits and taxation.

That is what I meant. Sure they're something versus, what? Armed barely trained rabble? Now sic that army versus an actual military.

When the likes of Apple reported a profit that can buy them an aircraft carrier, this means the mere price of an aircraft carrier. Not the ammunition expension, the fuel, each and every aircraft and assorted costs for that, and all the other small details that is powered by steady stream of funds from the funny ability of the state to take your money with only a mere promise that they will use it for public uses.

I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. Executive Outcomes sparked a scandal because it turned out that they were taking possession of diamond mines as part of their payment for their services. They weren't just some random dudes with guns saying "Gimmie 10 bucks and I'll fight for you." They were a highly organized and well trained corporate entity that knew how to make money and ensure they could continue raking it in whether they had contracts or not.

>corporations do not have that magical power that states possess: taxation.

INVALID

corporations are creatures of the state and therefore legally maintained thru taxation

they also are beneficiaries of public funds

most private companies exist to feed off of state funds whether construction, healthcare, education etc...


A lot of the R&D done by private entities are for profit which benefits the people largely
Most of the R&D done by private entities are funded by government grants, based off of existing government research


The entire videogame industry and the internet only exist because of government research. I think NASA has more than paid back its tax dollars.

Most of which are based on technological advances created by the government this past century. See the iPhone.

>How did corporations become subordinate to nation states?

More profitable

>independent
Some are getting close to that and have been close.

So you just admitted that corporations are subordinate to state. I rest my case.

I don't think how an essentially a mostly all infantry force in which each individual is a super-expensive investment relative to the company can compete with a first world army with all its assets it commands.

Lets even add the fucking immeasurables like Standing armies having revered military traditions while corporate goons will forever bear the stain of "soldier of fortune" who is not protected by the rules of war in the battlefield when captured.

Only because corporations do not have direct control over military forces. The best they can do is glorified begging and bribing (lobbying)

>capitalism is ruled by private enterprise

government is merely used to enforce capitalism

the fact is political leaders and captains of industry are one and the same. there is no separation of government and business. the businessmen are the politicians.

and remember the private British East India company went to conquer India (as a capitalist enterprise)

tl;dr corporations are a front for empire
the state is privatised aka corporations

So you're just going to pretend that mercenaries didn't dominate the European theater for hundreds of years then? Alright.

See Medieval mercenaries are under the argument: "It was a simpler time."

Centralization and the rise of standing armies led to their demise in Europe, fucking remember? The few remaining """""""""""mercenary armies"""''''''''''''' were organized military formations that are part of standing armies but open to foreigners (i.e. foreign legions, "Swiss" Guards).

>he thinks the leaders making military decisions are government workers

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_the_Dominican_Republic_(1916–24)

>United Fruit wars
web.archive.org/web/20120717004708/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/santamarta.htm


>I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

Chicken and egg. The system of corporations was created within the state by financial interests to facilitate smoother financial operations.

However, as those same financial operators essentially own the state, the corporations have become increasingly monolithic. The state has been relegated to a mechanism through which they can resolve their differences and project their collective will. In a sense, in most of the west, the state is thus already subordinate to the banks and corporations as a collective.

State sovereignty in the west is largely illusion in the face of financial interests, and, more than anything, serves a way to differ the expense of caring for the labor force, some of the shared infrastructure, and the maintenance of the financial sector's shared security force, in addition to legal arbitration. Trade agreements like TPP, where any corporation can overturn any law they don't like in a court made up of three private lawyers, is just one example where what little state sovereignty is left is rapidly dwindling.

>States create the legal framework upon which corporations rests.
Implying it wasn't networks of rich guys that came together to make and pass those laws.

Organizations like corporations exist in any capitalist society, whether or not the state legally defines them. Their existence isn't reliant on the state, it merely allows such entities to interact with one another through an arbitrator, instead of through force.

Damnit... Why is it only the boring dire predictions of Shadowrun are turning out to be prophetic?

>He thinks that did not have the sanction of the state's leaders.

>Organizations like corporations exist in any capitalist society, whether or not the state legally defines them. Their existence isn't reliant on the state, it merely allows

spot on

illegitimate corporations are known as organised syndicates aka mafias

both collect extortion payments

the states leaders are the financial elite aka the owners of industry

see corporations do it thru private insurance or just overpricing products and services and underpaying labor (outsourcing etc)

omg stop being so narrowminded, you're using the term corporations linked to your tiny subjective view of what it means to be a corporation. THINK BIG PLS

We've been living in cyberpunk for a decade, user. Neuromancer and snow crash weren't 100% right but give it another decade and we'll be right where everyone said we'd be - if not sooner

I prefer this side of the US Great Seal.
When America becomes the political dictatorship of the bourgeois, I hope they invert the sides.
Maybe spruce it up a bit.

...

Dick Cheney = Halliburton = Irq and other wars


G Bush = Dresser/Halliburton = Irq and other wars

Halliburton American multinational corporation, and one of the world's largest[6] oil field services companies, with operations in more than 80 countries

Paul Wolfowitz = President of the World Bank = Deputy Secretary of Defense


and you can add 1000s more to the list

>corporations do it thru private insurance or just overpricing products and services and underpaying labor (outsourcing etc)

The corporation externalizes all costs to the masses, while internalizing all profits. Corporations literally do not spend a penny, because it is the masses that pay all the costs including unlimited profit.

value is set by the externalization of all costs to the consumer. the consumer literally owns the corporate assets, but without title to it

earnings from increased productivity are not passed down to the common worker or employee.


and there is also bailouts and corporate welfare on a massive scale. government funds are wasted in the billions to feed corporations on a daily basis