| From: | Wordman wordman@*******.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Corp Citizens or National Citizens? [was:Megacorporate Power |
| Date: | Tue, 11 May 1999 21:08:45 -0400 |
> whatever, is mired in the 1980s. Look at the rapid trend towards
> demerger, as enterprise after enterprise decides to "focus on its core
> business".
What?! Which financial papers are you reading? The news today is filled with
huge merger news. Fleet Bank buying Bank Boston, AT&T buying MediaOne, ABB
and Alstom, British Petroleum and Amoco... the list goes on and on.
> One problem in FASA's viewpoint might be that they're Americans :)
This, I will grant you.
> So, where's the profitability from openly confronting nations? That's what I
> fail to see. Supposedly, any corporation can thumb its nose at any nation,
> but I have never seen how that can be true. Certainly a complex balance
> of power exists, but it by definition is _balanced_ - corporate economic
> power balanced by national military might.
Which is what I've been trying to say all along. This all started when
someone said, effectively, that national governments would have every reason
to destroy this balance and violate extraterritoriality by nationalizing
corporate facilities, and no reason not to.
My point has been and remains that corporations could cause significant
damage to a country that tried this. It would cost the corporation, sure,
but that wasn't the point. My original point is that corps would use much
political pressure to prevent the situation from getting that far in the
first place.
Wordman
