China: The first Nation Corporation?
Published: 2008-06-22
Category: Scribbles
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Language: [English]
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It looks like reality is once again stranger then fiction could ever be.

For years now we have been seeing corporations gaining more and more of the characteristics traditionally reserved for governments, things like a companies own security force, own rules, regulations, policies.. etc.. It's all the norm now. Those of us who read Science Fiction, especially those that paint a more bleak future, know how this will end. Big, faceless multinationals as warring fractions using the elected governments as proxies for corporate interests. Nothing new there.

What is interesting, is to see what China is doing. China is acting like a Corporation, but it is also a sovereign nation. And that has some real benefits. First, economy of scale. For China it's easy to buy nearly all the copper reserves of Peru and many of Africa's natural resources. They don't have to do it at the normal market prices. They are a nation after all, they just buy what they want, and then sell it on to their national factories.

Sure it takes a decade before these investments are producing. But that's the other benefit, long term planning. Who cares about quarterly results? China is not traded on any stock-market. Who cares about the elections in four years? They are not even a democracy, after all. So if you make a reasonable investment now that you know in 10 years will give your country access to resources at 20% the market price. Good deal for you.

China has gone from Communism to Corporatism (the predicted final stage of capitalism) without passing any power to democratic tendencies.

Now that China is doing so well, will it's people start demanding more liberties? How will other governments try to imitate it's success.