| In the near future we may witness new mind-boggling mergers and births of megacorporations with an economic and social power comparable to, if not exceeding, that of large countries. The amalgamation of corporate capital, the growth in the petroleum price and reduction in the rate of medium- and small-size businesses in the economy now clearly demonstrate the crisis that has been shaping up in recent years.
Inter alia, this is a crisis of private business, because less and less room is being left for it. Commerce, petroleum extraction and refining, telecommunication, production and services, software development and advertisement – all goes into corporations. So what is left for a free businessman? – Only to keep an eye open for an officer position in a future megasystem. The purpose of business as a means of self-expression for a talented and energetic personality is, obviously, freedom. This is the freedom to choose the way to go. Only when this freedom is clearly put and understood can new business arise or new discoveries be made. However, we see today a few tendencies which potentially may ruin the business per se.
Share vs. money
The crisis of all major currencies, the US Dollar primarily, will continue until the whole world’s monetary system is completely discredited. Indeed, the supportability of the dollar by the world’s trade turnover and, first of all, mandatory calculation of petroleum prices in USD, is now in doubt. We are on the brink of accepting new systems of equivalents. The matter is not substituting major currencies for others. The matter is the change of the paradigm. The name for new currency is – a share.
In the mergers and share exchanges between the corporations, money is rather a measure than a means of settlement for portions of property. Corporations settle up with their shares and print more shares to amalgamate and propagate their capital. Does this differ essentially from a state printing and distributing money? Broadly speaking, money is a share of the state supported by a state’s gold reserve. The turnovers and costs of megacorporations reach hundreds of millions of dollars today – more than the yearly gross product of some quite well-off countries. The Google shares are a bright example of the future monetary paradigm. Google today is vigorously purchasing existing and new high-tech companies, settling them up with their own shares, which, naturally, grow in price after each deal. Consider that normally the shares give no other income to their holders but the growing price, and give no power to influence the company’s management, which is the founders’ realm. Google shares are supported by the interest of millions of users to the most popular search engine in the world. The larger their number, the higher the share price. We won’t marvel if someday the Google shareholders will be paid their dividends in… new shares! This strongly resembles financial “pyramids” in Russia 10-15 years ago. Query, when can this end? Perhaps the answer is in the very name of google – the number with one hundred zeros. And we cannot be sure, which looses its value faster, the dollar or the google. The market so far votes for the latter. In Google we trust.*
Corporation vs. state
During the last two decades, the largest corporations have strived to acquire the status of subjects of international law – in other words, to reach a level of the UN or something. Then the “intercorporative law” may emerge to regulate the relations between these “subjects”, and then the uniqueness of the international law will no longer be the case. Hence, the role of the state as the guarantor of law will become debatable. Even now, the top managers of Gazprom may dictate their terms influential on the national economies to prime ministers of some countries. The Russian gas giant has become the world’s fourth high-cost corporation due to the unprecedented petroleum prices, and has an ambition to further capitalize up to one trillion dollars. Its core is an expensive infrastructure and dependence of thousands of companies, and hundreds of millions of people on stable petroleum supply. Gazprom is so mighty that one cannot exclude that being its employee will be more prestigious than to be a citizen even of the most developed country in the world. Then, why not issue special corporate passports for these employees? These passports will grant the right to enter countries that host the Gazprom affiliations. Then we will see a new kind of organization – a corporate federation, a quasistate, distributed over the planet but having all the proxies and properties of state in the modern sense?
Google vs. barrel
Trying to foresee (or forestall?) the collisions of corporative systems of the future, we still perceive some new opportunities. The values declared by corporative codes and standards, and ideological fundamentals set to ensure the solidarity of all corporation members in their promotion may lead to the understanding of necessity of room for free business in the corp orative framework. Business favors leaders, but not functionaries. The most advanced companies in the world economy foster this vision of things by creating technopolises with lively social medium. This understanding should be shared by other megacorporations of the future.
* The issue of comparison of equivalents and setting their exchange course becomes solvable in the electronic era. The exchange of shares as the measures of settlement does not sound that unreal, provided the appropriate infrastructure. |
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