Stephan: In the years since 2008 of all the world's economists two, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, have been notable for the accuracy of their assessments. This essay by Stigltz continues the trend. This is the best commentary I have read that simply explains how the locus of power, largely through the medium of "partnerships" is transferring from geographical nations to virtual corporate states. Agreements like TPP are explicit in this as Stiglitz explains.
Once one sees this it is clear why TPP should not be brought to life. Agreements like the TPP are creating a structure whereby forms of governance systems continue in form but in substance real power will reside with the 1%, acting through the governments they own. Citizens United is accomplishing this in the United States. How could one think otherwise in a country where billionaires openly hold auditions, and just one can keep a candidate in the running.
This geopolitical trend is the 21st century equivalent of the 19th century creation of the modern national state as the center of power, and it is going to change the world. Ironically, though in many ways we are reverting to an earlier model.
The current trends suggest humanity is shifting to a system in which a very small group, the 0.01%, and the corporations they control, are going to think and live globally. A larger 1% will remain nationally identified. A modest middle class of professionals and craftsmen will be entirely national as will a much larger peasantry. It is a kind of neo-feudalism.
The only way to resist this future, which has a very high probability, is through voting and the quotidian choices you make always being the most compassionate and life-affirming option.
Can it be done? Look at what has just happened in Ireland.
Nobel Laureate Economist Joseph Stiglitz
The United States and the world are engaged in a great debate about new trade agreements. Such pacts used to be called “free-trade agreements”; in fact, they were managed trade agreements, tailored to corporate interests, largely in the US and the European Union. Today, such deals are more often referred to as “partnerships,”as in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). But they are not partnerships of equals: the US effectively dictates the terms. Fortunately, America’s “partners” are becoming increasingly resistant.
It is not hard to see why. These agreements go well beyond trade, governing investment and intellectual property as well, imposing fundamental changes to countries’ legal, judicial, and regulatory frameworks, without input or accountability through democratic institutions.
Perhaps the most invidious – and most dishonest – part of such agreements concerns investor protection. Of course, investors have to be protected against the risk that rogue governments will seize their property. But that is not what these provisions are about. There have been very few expropriations in recent decades, and […]
