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Vincine Fallica

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Sometime I feel that countries are becoming, or will be made, obsolete by commercial and organizational interests.

Inspired from Christophe Cop’s comment;
>Maybe nations should cease to exist altogether? (Imagine there's no countries< in Marina Theodotou’s conversation;
>Do you think nations ought to/need to rebrand occasionally? If so, how, how often and why?<

In the future there will be ‘citizens’ of the ‘nation’ of Exxon, the University of Chicago, Archer Midland Daniels, Harvard, Apple, General Electric, Citibank, Blue Cross & Blue Shield, etc. Either directly or indirectly, as one of the organizations feeding them or distributing whatever it is they do. That countries, or at least governments, will devolve into just something to facilitate the population serving the organizations' needs. This goes across borders, across cultures, etc.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

Conceivably it might result in a limiting of environmental damage as without people there wouldn’t be any business. If people are dying off, they'll have no one to sell to, and/or if people haven’t any money left, you can’t get more. (Although I fear it's already too late for that.)

Wild idea?

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  • Brian Beauchamp

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    Apr 11 2011: The corporation as a replacement for the state, seems to be a likely scenario for the future, it is certainly one that has been foreseen buy many futurists such as Gibson. If you’re a citizen of the United States this is one of many reasons to fear our now overly conservative supreme court they are granting corporations many of the same rights as individuals. If corporations have the same rights as individuals it severely degrades the ability of government to intercede on behalf of the people. The problem with corporations as governments is that they move on economic imperatives primarily as opposed to social imparities. In many ways it would be more honest but I would like to see some other motives in the mix besides money. The same thing may be said of religion as government, your moral compass may not be the same as mine. So for me I think of government as a good referee one that hopefully keeps all the players honest. Because if you live in china you know that it’s cheaper to make tainted milk then clean milk and maybe you moral compass is not the same as mine. I think we will always need governments, whether we continue to have them is another question.

    • Vincine Fallica

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      Apr 11 2011: Of course I agree, but the need for government is only on the population’s behalf, not the corporation’s.

      The problem is governments are not capital generators, corporations are.

      The question is how socially responsible behavior can be rigged to generate capital for a corporation without the artificial constraint of regulations or laws. That is, it would generate capital, and thus motivation, even if the legal constraints didn’t exist.

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