> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of JKSCHW at aol.com
> Nathan:
<< Does global capitalism need these
> >multinational institutions to exert its power? Unlike you, I am not
> >convinced that the answer is yes or even that capital would be weaker
> >without them.
>
> Doug: That's a good question, and I can't figure out the answer. >>
>
> I am not surprised at Nathan, who is always coming up with this sort of
> thing, but I am surprised at you, Doug, particularly when you in
> fact give the answer in the next few lines by pointingt out that markets
are not
> spontaneous but have to be built by a painful process of
> institutiobalization of which MNOs area central part and always have
been.
Multinational Organizations like the World Bank, IMF and WTO are of absolutely recent origin, yet global capitalism has been able to florish for centuries. Of course, markets are not natural, but they do not need to be rooted in global or even national government institutions.
In fact, the United States example is a good example of how economic institutions thrive in political units smaller than that of their economic scope. Corporations in the US are to this day incorporated not at the national level but at the state level, in fact overwhelmingly in one of the smallest states possible - Delaware. Those state-incorporated corporations were able to go global in the 19th century and early 20th century long before any hint of global institutional regulation was in place.
Of course, all these corporations need some political unit as a home base and have to negotiate the politics of each nation; but global institutions are not required for that. They may simplify the rules, but that does not necessarily change the power relationships.
The idea that global corporations can more easily be controlled by smaller political units just makes little sense. Going back to the US example, while there were some gains made by state regulation of corporations (where the Supreme Court was not striking them down), the real struggle was to create national legislation and rights for national unions to rein in those corporations.
While jumping to the global level is obviously harder, there is a reality that some form of international political power is ultimately needed to take on the power of global capital. The IMF, World Bank and WTO are obviously not the right form of that power and there may be an argument, as Patrick Bond notes, that the first step to building real democratic global institutions is to burn the present ones to the ground. But I do believe that the long-term goal has to be one way or the other building a global democratic political structure - a global state that is democratically representative with full human, social and economic rights guaranteed.
Whether that is the goal is one debate and how to get there if that is the goal is another. But the idea that we will do better with corporations institutionalized only at the national level is, I think, a false hope. Rubert Murdoch pays amazingly low tax rates precisely because he is able to manipulate the conflicting laws and rules of different countries, shuffling profits and paper costs around. Corporations play similar games in all realms of corporate finance and whipsaw countries in forcing down labor and environmental regulation.
So I am unconvinced by the "nix it" argument unto itself. It may make sense as an initial step, but if the argument is that this will lead to less power for global capital because corporations are weakened when depending only on nation-state institutions, I think he argument is wrong.
-- Nathan Newman