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| "Welcome to Walmart! You bring dollars, yes?" |
Two-thirds of the world’s Top 100 economies are not countries or governments at all: they are corporations. Half of the Top 40 are corporations. Walmart is in the Top 10. Let that sink-in for a moment: Walmart. In fact, the mega-retailer more than doubles Russia’s economy. The Top 20 corporations combined are richer than the U.S., which happens to be the world’s richest economy.
The US Democratic Party may be one of the few left wings in the world not to understand this very essence of the global balance of power. Ironic, since it holds a sizable share of the world’s richest economy. As a London-based wealth manager told The Guardian last month, “I think what people fail to realize is that governments are now just little parishes. Who do you think is more powerful: Procter & Gamble or the government of France? P&G, of course. They can set down their business anywhere in the world they please. And high-net-worth individuals are the same way.” The problem was, he said, that onshore governments – particularly some in Europe and North America – didn’t yet understand their place in this new hierarchy. Thus, he added, “Social democracy is creating too big demands on the wealth creators.”
Some truth in the wealth manager’s view, though somewhat overstated. First of all, Cincinnati’s own P&G would be so honored to take over La Patrie, but at only 5% of France’s revenue it would fall a diaper or two short. Still, point taken, especially when it comes to multinational agility and the tapping of global markets. P&G is certainly better poised than France to penetrate the globe, if market virility were still a Freudian thing. Coûter les yeux de la tête, a wise Frenchman might say. Too high a price to pay for global domination. And therein lies the greatest of all human paradoxes: The less we do, the more we demand of others; the more we do, the more we demand of others. I’d like to meet these “others”. Apparently they’re the ones who get shit done.
Meet “the others”. The top three Chinese corporations combined could be in the G8. Hell, China would make the G2, never mind the G8 - IF it were invited to the Capitalist's Club. But perhaps it’s that age-old Chinese wisdom that empowers them to brush off the snub: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member!” (from the Tao of Groucho).
Let’s slow down here for a moment. Something is not adding up... China? In the G2? Three of the world’s top four corporations are Chinese?? To quote from a more streetwise Tao: WTF? Surely the ONE thing (hold up Curly’s “One Thing” finger when thinking of this), the ONE reason China has traditionally been dissed from The Club has to do with the S-word. You know, “Socialism”.
Let’s cut to the chase: it’s the over-the-top repression that keeps China from The Club. That would be all good and great if it weren’t for the elephant in the room of America’s prisons. The U.S. incarcerates at a rate of more than SIX times the average G8 nation. Let that one sink in for another moment. It almost doesn’t matter who represses more, they are both on a collision course with shame and unsustainability.
The number one and the number two economies of the world are on an amazing race to the next seismic paradigm shift: Socialized Capitalism vs Capitalized Socialism. Who will win? I can’t say for sure, but at the rate they are both repressing their citizens the race is starting to look more like a dystopian novel than a quest for a better world.
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“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”
-Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World"
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