Neo-feudalism consumerism and ultra-capitalism/corporatism: bending the knee to organisations over the state (Fromm, Being, 27)
The rise of globalisation and international corporations has challenged the authority of the state. While in the past government’s could meddle with monopolies, with companies moving overseas local governments have lost that power. Instead corporations have become more powerful. Some even believing that the most notorious run the world.
The term neo-feudalism has been used throughout the recent decades. A demonstrating of corporations exceeding the might of the governments they reside in. A corporation seeking profit will expand its eligibility. If governments protest they will ship their resources away. If workers strike, fire them and hire new ones abroad for cheaper. Globalisation did not only mean more conversation between countries but also the malleability of travel. Corporations could move their bases and find a new home quickly. Their success was beloved and beholden. No nation was safe if the corporation decided to just up and leave. Luckily many of these American-based corporations feel more at home as well as recognising the economic supremacy of the US. Then again, sometimes the workers are highly trained such as Apple. The tax benefits are super worthwhile as well as training thousands of novices over again would be a tremendous loss. There is a rationale to stay even with the overwhelming critiques.
Yet, the tax benefits themselves are offered by the government. The US court cases making corporations people only solidified their power. Rising corporate power is the fault of the nation itself. Given the capitalist freedom of America it was only natural that privatised groups would rise in every sector. Yet here lies the problem. The issue is when the government intervenes at the behest of the corporation. For example, big pharma is the only one who is allowed to deal medicine. If you wanted to start an ambulance company you would have to be licensed by big pharma’s standards. Since they do not want the competition they will obviously refuse your request which they’ve done multiple times. Governmental members have also provided favours for corporations instead of assisting the people. A congressmen gave a chunk of land to a crony businessman to build a factory when a good samaritan offered to build a park instead. Weapons contractors have their own lucid consequences.
With governments afraid of corporations there is much pleading and kissing up for their own needs. To some degree it may keep them in state and hiring working but at the same time much of their nefarious operations intentionally go unnoticed. Even more so the consumer turns a blind eye. The consumer power of the US prevents many from moving overseas. Whether that be continuous taxes or lost revenue. In other counties like Singapore and Hong Kong the cost is even higher. Taxes are even greater. The potential benefits are outweighed. While the government may have them grounded it doesn’t mean they have control over them. In many ways, nesting in Silicon Valley is perfect for them. If the government is going to provide them a sweet deal to stay they why move. The government hasn’t prohibited them from moving abroad just their headquarters must stay put. Apple is global so is Starbucks yet their main base is in the US where privacy is much more provided.
Given, the state-backed assistance to corporations in cultivating monopolies and awarding privileges arbitrarily to those they wish deserve. The issue isn’t so much the market economy but the governmental intervention in the economy. University tuition didn’t rise from corporate greed but governmental welfare. Governments began giving out loans more frequently so the universities assumed they were paying for tuition. As the loans increased so did tuition. The irony is that if loans are given to everyone then universities will just raise their tuition. There is no ceiling. The government has opened the floodgates and cares little to solve their mistake. While there is debate about unequal competition. In the early 1900s, established companies just ate the smaller ones, shoving them out of business. Still, the biggest issue is the government batting for the other team. They aren’t on the side of citizens but corporations. A majority of congress had increased stock in weapons contractors with each passing year of the Afghan War consistently campaigning for the war’s continuation. While they were making millions, citizens were losing their children for green paper.
In many situations, intervention which is intended to assist the citizen is actually to assist the wealthy. Beating down the citizen more. It is worse than the mid nineteenth century. At least then, the government wasn’t helping anyone. Companies were killing citizens with government turning a blind eye. Laissez-faire dominance kept governments a bay while employers destroyed the spirits and body parts of employees. What changed ironically against libertarian advocates was governmental intervention to an extent. This isn’t all true. What really caused the shift was unions. Workers unions shot back at the employers. Without any aid from the government ceasing their protesting, they kept marching on. Laissez-faire applied to both sides. No aid for anyone. Unions grouped together. The early attempts failed but the AFL succeeded in achieving better conditions. There is a degree to where unions brought the government involved leading to many reforms in the early twentieth century up to WWI. It was the interventionism that leads to the considerably better conditions workers live under than before.
Factory work, as deadly as it was, faired better than other domestic jobs of its time. More flexibility and freedom. Given the advances, it was a healthier life than medieval peasantry. Though to be fare the question is unfair given the advances in medicine since the Middle Ages. Side by side farming technically may have been healthier but there was still freedom to be fired or quit though the choice was more forced to make money to pay for homeostasis. To some extent the issue is looking at the picture with short lenses and assuming causation. Indeed, intervention eventually provided better conditions but it didn’t necessarily need to. People struggled but so have many throughout history. The first generation was bound to suffer but unlike the gruelling static linearity, the industrial revolution provided the access to better quality life. Many would suffer but that is life. Take the case of D-Day. In order for the siege of Normandy to be successful the first line would have to punch through the enemy defences. Most of the first wave perished. A necessary evil in order for the later units to overwhelm the enemy. Conditions presumably would’ve improved inevitably with better technology and more worker hounding.
Even Libertarians may accept the positive contributions of the governmental apparatus to make workers lives better. People were demoralised and the government came in and saved them. Yet what government ever does anything without an agenda? What government actually helps out of the purest intentions? The answer is nearly zero. The government was eager to help as much as they were eager to provide the welfare state. While the first interventionists may have been well-intentioned, their successors used the ideology to broker deals and snuggle close with other elites. The government was the one who kept slavery alive, it was the revolution that overpowered its will giving moralists the much needed passion and safety net to eradicate it. Moreover, the issue isn’t so much with federal officials but with state officials. The greatest lie of conservatives is governmental interventionism. Conservatives do not want less government, they want less federal oversight but plenty of state immersion. The creation of Jim Crowe during the industrial revolution just shows the manner of governmental intrusion to alter the lives of people.
Governmental intervention did aid workers but only those who were white. Woman and African-Americans were not aided in the quest. Minorities were shaken with grief. Only a few years later, Jim Crowe made its debut. The era of reform was selective to a certain privileged group. While growth is gradual, it seems interventionism had its own intentions that only fuelled discrimination instead of solving it. The same thing happened with the welfare state. Blacks were gradually growing and then reliance on governmental aid as well as a few other nuances deconstructed the entire push forward. Interventionism studied their rise and pushed them off the cliff. They were so close to Everest and given a participatory trophy for playing before being cut off. Much that hides behind the curtain is the congressional imprint on the suppression of liberty. Just recall the Dred Scott case which legally determined his forced return to slavery. The government upheld a discrimination of ontology and discernible biology. While without abolitionism, slavery would’ve continued, the industrial revolution presumably would have ended it at some point. Despite that, it cannot be under-appreciated how much the government’s policies created the inferiority of blacks.
The great reforms came with a catch. Not only did governments gain attention and Jesus-like salvation tropes, it also placed the government more deeply in bed with the wealthy. Technology boomed which made life easier not regulations. Regulations were helpful but also did what they always did kept people at bay. Recall in the Middle Ages it was canon that workers status was inferior and competed to work for a master. The argument isn’t even if governments should ever intervene but that there are negative consequences to their intervention. The good that comes may be outweighed by the evil it leads to. Reforms can be quite positive: outlawing slavery, better conditions, women’s suffrage, same sex marriage and so many more. The question is does this result end up causing more issues than it intended to solve. Take a controversial claim like same-sex marriage. The government is protecting those that are disallowed to do so but who is disallowing them. Many times federal approval is from dissenting state opinion. The state bans it and then the federal government overpowers it. None of this is economics. The poor reality is the insertion of cultural nonsense. Stupid emotions clouding the market.
Overall the government’s job is to protect its people. While inquiries of the extent intervention or the need of its presence is justifiable, it is always taken to the extreme. The War on Drugs or on Terror has only hurt more than it has helped. Running on some neo-christianised salvation, the public’s coercion into the state’s affairs has muddled their trust and destroyed their reputation. How many blacks were incarcerated for ounces of weed, how many poor teenagers were killed in Iraq. Black markets spring up, communities impoverished and society tarnished. The era of reform sought giant leaps in corporate interests while citizen interests were struck down. There are a few giant leaps periodically but over two hundred were struck down following the creation of corporate personhood. The fourteenth amendment progressed civil dignity yet also was used to capitalise on the corporate greed. Then at the height of the sexual revolution, corporate power was extended. Just as citizens were gaining their freedom so were big businesses. One could not go without the other, apparently. Even when intervention can be helpful, politicalising corporations has enabled legislative victories debasing attempts to make workers' lives better and destroying the market fashion.
The gradual intrusion of corporate might from money to persuasion has only furthered their rise. This is the height of corporate greed. The height of feudalistic themes. The government is beholden to the corporations word. The king needs the nobles’ aid. The government acts as the corporations demand. The vast money and lobbying executed to bribe officials to their side is monstrous yet so deep. The citizens live in a republic run by aristocratic greed. An illusion prevailed. It looks like a republican system. People are elected. Congress is diverse. We had a black president. Democracy must be working. The machine is operating. Deceiving the public into submission. Well-intentioned youngsters fall in line with their older contemporaries. Aspiring ideas fall flat on their face after their first term. They became the evil they attempted to overcome. Following the elitist mantra they turn into the new nobles. Just look at January 6th for a great example. While they didn’t care for the destruction of cities. No protection nor salvation for the assault. Democracy was still in full force because elections still were in effect. Yet when they get attacked for their appalling hypocrisy and elitist life styles. Boarding people up in their houses destroying their businesses while not following their own rules. While making millions in the process. That is when democracy ends. When corrupt officials are shaken to the floor decrying the rebellious anger.
Despite the rise in corporatism, their hold is not necessarily a bad thing. While moderns string assaults on feudalistic nobles and cinema characterises them as evildoers, it isn’t necessarily the case. There is a lot more embellishment than is genuine. There were obviously bad nobles and bad monarchs. Noble taxation caused many merchants to seek out the monarchy to take control and protect them. This may have assisted merchants in ridding noble power but led to absolutism. Absolutism famously was the catalyst to democracies given the disaster that was that era. A pious king meant a good life and psychopathic king meant a bad life. It was all dependent on chance. This was the same for nobles. Unlike absolutism, nobles had rules and principles. Their own pride was on the line and any publicised wrongdoing would doom their household so even they had to be careful. There were sketchy corrupt ones. They had power and they exercised it. Laws were bent in their favour yet it would be untrue to claim that this made them evil. They had a duty to manage their household like a modern CEO though less complexity but potentially more pressure.
As awful as feudalism was, it had certain benefits. Social determinism meant obligations and connections between one another. This social interactiveness further enhanced the communal aspect whereby people worked for another. Products were passed along as all was in the service of the communal cause. The static society ensured that the communal payoff was much quicker than the profit achieved in the following century. Not too pretty but it had some perks that are lost today. In that regard, to some extent it follows that corporations may occupy a similar hub. Whereby the noble is stronger than the king and the corporation is stronger than the government. Whether or not this was applicable over a century ago is irrelevant. Change may be more possible by corporations than governments. The ability of governmental reform was startled by the citizenry in response to the mechanical shifts in society. The transformations unfolding forced the government’s hand. Without the technological progress in the private sector, the static interventionism may never have reached the civil liberties applied all over. It was businesses that put extended civil liberties on the map.
There are terrible issues with corporatism. Yet interventionism may not be the solution. Just because the media discusses it endlessly does not mean it is genuine. It is pandering slogans to viewers more than legitimate news. What is the better option. Faith in the angelic government that promises to intervene all the while screwing over the citizenry. Corporations may be contributing to climate change or tough factory conditions. Yet this is something that people can protest without governmental intrusion. Once the government intercedes, it attempts to control the situation. Like a parent taking over the fight between two brothers. Corporations have done less damage than the CIA. American led democratisation has contributed more evil than Amazon exploiting its workers. At least people can push back against corporations, they cannot do so readily against the government. When was the last time a government official was sent to prison. They cover up their own faults and blame the citizenry. The government has never been responsible, corporations have never been given that chance. The government has given them privileges but then publicly calling them out. It a straw man to make it seem they are on the citizenry’s side, they are not. They are unfaithful liars.
Laissez-faire may be a tad too much. Yet the governmental attachment to corporate greed is truly remarkable. There are insertions that companies such as Blackrock and Vanguard are behind governmental orders. This synthesis of political and economic centrality is heavily dangerous. Yet be aware of the political corruption involved in submitting the citizenry. More than trusting politicians alone is that they are already in bed with these businesses. May as well take your chances with corporations without political might than those immersed with political butt-kissing. For many it is their intervention in the public sector that created the recession. While recessions may be an inevitable part of the economic cycle, their magnitude is directly related to the policies legislated that drown citizens in poverty. When Blackrock is siting with congress members on the future of economic policy during a pandemic, there is something devilish brewing. Many of those politicians who were ousted for their insider trading with respective companies. The government always blames poor people and immigrants for the disaster. They never take responsibility. The reversal of governmental intrusion would leave wealth more democratised instead of centralised. Homes wouldn’t inflate as clearly but they would have homes.
This age is similarly feudalistic though lacking the social arsenal. Exchanging the social obligation for individualistic immunity. There are clear reservations for corporate power. Just as bad nobles were extremely dangerous so are unchecked corporations. Unlike the past, people can stand up for themselves in many degrees. Just because, it isn’t obvious or it is difficult does not mean it isn’t possible or shouldn’t be done. Recovering the social obligation would be a novel start. To this degree the humanistic prioritisation in place of religious affection must be empowered. The ethic of responsibility must revive itself in light of ethic of rights. Rights are significant but they are foundational. The citizenry as a whole including the wealthy ought to see themselves as part of the whole. All working for a singular clause of prosperity and salvation. Philanthropy goes along way, Carnegie and Rockefeller despite their faults donated millions. It must go beyond donations and behavioural assimilation. Profit is the most important thing and with lackadaisical aid from the state, it is the people who must rebel, protesting for care.
Corporatism is more than just the workers themselves. It is the influence and their users especially social media. While the general purview is the employees working at these factories and the conditions they suffer under, the massive impact of media imagination is strong. They are indeed platforms but they also harvest information. Regular media projects information to the public. Conveying and manipulating the audience. It is a play honing on the prey. Social media platforms invited audience members onto the stage to play characters. By indulging in their website you are feeding into their system. Users facilitate the crony levels of demonstration. Advocates fight for higher wages for workers because they don’t want to lose the service. People wish to aid the struggling worker but they also do not want to lose the quick transferral of their goods. There is no recommendation for another Amazon to rise but for Amazon to just give in so consumers can continue to benefit for the company. There is also a level of influencers especially on YouTube who utilise the platform to make themselves big. Users participate in the algorithmic sensationalism while other users export their ideas in video format. Influencers in their entrepreneurial spirit hope to capitalise and make more money than the salary contracted workers. Corporatism is bought into by users whether to enjoy entertainment or to enrich off popularisation.
Much of the literature on semi-corporatocracy is filled with supreme technological advancements. The cyberpunk genre fills the void of corporate power by the leash of supreme technology with extensive poverty. Sci-fi alongside the cyberpunk nexus involves incredible inequality. The dystopian nature of cyberpunk demonstrates the incredible progress of technology met with greed. Nueromancer wows the reader with futuristic amazement yet backstabs with an oppressive oligarchy. A nihilistic hell hole with all the technology present. It is not paranoia or megalomania but cruel corruption. It isn’t too far off in regards to the possibility but is concerning the tech availability and corporate thug namesake. The genre fits the nightmares of liberals and denounce the laissez-faire advocates. One thing that must be acknowledged is that without choice there is little possibility for change. Without sidelining the state there is little hope for moral aspirations. Corporations will never change if they are tattled on at every turn. There are mishaps and those to be pointed out but relying on the state to mend every issue will only stir more division. The humanist hope will be a foregone conclusion. Corporations will persist, hierarchies still in place. Yet the communal enterprise seeks to veil such differences. Yes they exist but are merely a cog in the machine. A face of reality with no less dignity nor ontology.
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