Until
recently in human history, it was a common and quite
unremarkable occurrence that a fitter or stronger tribe
or nation would decide to conquer, and in certain instances
decimate, a less fit tribe or nation. Robert Ardrey
characterized this contest as "the territorial
imperative."
He
argued that the gene sequence that compels us to acquire
and accumulate territory answers to our deepest longings
and is inseparable from the will to survive. That it
results in the takeover of a territory's means of production
and natural resources is secondary to the raw expression
of innate drive, which is inviolate and a law unto itself
to which it is in permanent thrall.
Figures
in the past such as Alexander the Great, Tupac
Inka, Attila the Hun, Genghis Kahn, Tamerlane
and Columbus were revered, envied and emulated for their
exploits and conquests. The blood, grief and wreckage
left in their wake counted for next to nothing next
to their accomplishment. To become a conqueror, to conquer
the world was the dream of every child. Until recently.
Today,
these former heroes, the subject of novels, operas and
works of art, are reviled for the same behaviour.
How
do we account for this falling out of favour of the
DNA-blessed drive to acquire territory, and how did
it happen so quickly? What great transformation precipitated
a behavioural change that convinced man to suddenly
refuse what had been natural to him for 300,000 years?
Closer to the present and just prior to the advent of
this new radical way of thinking, how did the rationale
that justified mercantilism and colonialism come to
be regarded as immoral?
Beginning
with the first wave of decolonization in the Americas
in the 18th century, it became unacceptable that a militarily
more capable nation had the right to impose its will
on a less developed one. By the 1960s, almost every
nation in the world signed on to the credo that national
sovereignty is inviolate, that the right to self-determination
must override all political and economic considerations.
Belligerent nations that refused the new enlightenment
were condemned as outlaw and, short of war, were subject
to trade sanctions, political embargoes and were excluded
from participating in the world's most important cultural
and sporting events; such as what happened when Russia
took over Crimea in 2014. Its invasion of Ukraine in
2022 precipitated a costly war.
From
man's inauspicious origins in Africa to the present,
his single most preoccupation has been to separate,
to distance himself from his animal heritage. This brave
and sometimes Quixotic undertaking, which remains an
unfinished journey, tells of the means and devices he
has painstakingly fashioned for the sole purpose of
subduing his primordial self. And there have been successes.
If we narrow our focus to the arts and humanities, we
can justly conclude that man has indeed transcended
his animal heritage.
Is
it not the goal of every civilized society to domesticate
human behaviour, to make it subject to ideas, laws and
principles that originate in the mind, in reason and
logic?
If
the essential difference between cave culture and contemporary
life is an accurate measure of man's advances in becoming
civilized, and is proof that most of the world's people
are willing to forgo certain freedoms for the sake of
law and order and security, this success is more attributable
to man's fear of the consequences of violating the law
rather than being in accord with it. Is there a parent,
who left to his own devices, doesn't want to destroy
the virus, the pedophile who raped and killed his 7-year-old
daughter but finds himself restrained by the law? His
frustration, his unhappiness stems from being unable
to act upon what he feels what he should do and is his
natural right to do. This is the voice through which
human nature speaks, and despite our best laid plans
this voice has not been silenced.
Freud
recognized this dichotomy, which became the basis of
his classic Civilization and its Discontents.
Prior to Freud, Rousseau proposed that "man is
free but is everywhere in chains."
A
cursory survey of the last 200 years argues that despite
man's noble humanizing intentions, and the enshrining
of human rights in most of the world's constitutions,
human nature is still calling the shots, that the ideal
self man has constructed out of the wraith-like materials
of his mind collapse in the real world where his desire
for absolute power is supreme; and that no human cost
is too much in that preordained pursuit.
From
history we rudely learn that man, a creature for whom
instinct often prevails over reason, almost always manages
to find the means to circumvent the elegant restraints
he has impositioned on himself. The mighty and powerful,
bent on maintaining their privilege, routinely tinker
with, tweak and manipulate the laws in order to acquire
and protect their wealth and power. The tax
code in the United States is 6,871 pages
thick, and we know the check-out girl didn't write them,
nor did she invent the concept of the off-shore tax
haven.
"The
top Fortune 500 corporations are avoiding up
to $767 billion in U.S. federal income taxes by holding
more than $2.6 trillion of permanently reinvested profits
offshore."
Food
conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland enjoyed $438 million
of U.S. pre-tax income last year and received a federal
tax rebate of $164 million. General Electric earned
nearly $7 billion in 2023, yet instead of paying any
federal income tax on those profits they got a refund
of $423 million. The delivery giant FedEx zeroed out
its federal income tax on $1.2 billion of U.S. pre-tax
income in 2020 and received a rebate of $230 million.
The shoe manufacturer Nike
didn’t pay a dime of federal income tax
on almost $2.9 billion of U.S. pre-tax income last year,
instead enjoying a $109 million tax rebate.
Nota
bene: These conglomerates were simply abiding by
laws that their teams of lawyers and lobbyists wrote
up and legislated.
Every
career politician must learn the art of paying lip services
to rules and regulations intended for the voting public
while assuring that the means to acquire territory and
power are left intact. To this end, now that the outright
takeover of a nation is verboten, the corporation
is enlisted as a legitimate extension of power.
In
"Neoliberalism and the Global Order" Noam
Chomsky concludes the corporatism thrives on "centrally
managed transactions within single firms, huge institutions
linked to their competitors by strategic alliances,
all of them tyrannical in internal structure, designed
to undermine democratic decision making and to safeguard
the masters from market discipline."
During
the past 150 years the corporation has evolved so that
it can now, with impunity, divide and conquer. It is
the Trojan horse that slips past all moral and ethical
barriers. When nations are restrained, the corporation
gets a free pass.
In
today's post-colonial environment, it is both countenanced
and lawful for one corporation to decimate a competitor
and take over its market share, otherwise known as territory.
When a corporation files for Chapter 10 bankruptcy,
it is announcing that it has been bludgeoned into non-existence
with the complicity of the law. Corporatism is reconstituted
mercantilism (colonialism). No shots need be fired,
no invading army assembled.
The
corporation provides extraordinary wealth for the individuals
at the top; Elon Musk and Bill Gates have amassed more
wealth than many countries. Musk, without any political
experience, poured more than a quarter of a billion
dollars into Trump's 2024 re-election campaign and now
leads the Department of Government Efficiency and enjoys
personal access to his new friend, the President of
the United States. Money and power are two sides of
the same crown.
The
corporation has become so powerful that it dictates
policy to government. Two billionaires, George Soros
and Rupert Murdoch, finance the Democratic and Republican
parties. No surprise that according to the Pew Research
Center, 70% of Americans think the system is rigged
in favour of the rich.
Where
nations now fear to tread, the corporation, at the invitation
of the host nation, is allowed to set up shop and partake
of (code for exploit) its natural resources. It is invasion
by invitation. Governments now depend on corporations
to do what they can no longer do. National power and
corporate power are vitally linked, with the latter
more cost effective than any invading army. The corporation
is human nature "red tooth and claw” dressed up
in suit.
The
ten largest corporations of the world control 80% of
the world's
wealth. BlackRock, State Street, and
Vanguard— hold $20 trillion in assets, close to one-fifth
of all investable assets in the world.
Corporations
that specialize in 24/7 entertainment were evolved to
keep the masses permanently distracted and disorganized.
Through their social media platforms (TikTok, X, Instagram,
etc.) they spread fake news and manipulate the unsuspecting
public into taking positions that go against its self-interest.
Marketing is the strategy a company employs to protect
its market share or territory. The monies that finance
marketing come from the consumer, to the effect that
the latter ends up paying to be persuaded into buying
the company's products.
What does the future hold for the corporation? Like
mercantilism and colonialism, will it one day fall out
of favour? Given the invariables in man's basic constitution,
the outlook is grim. And even if corporatism should
one day fall by the wayside, who is to say something
more insidious won't take its place.
The remarkable ascent of the corporation reminds us
that Homo sapiens is still more animal than angel, a
life form at the mercy of impulses and appetites of
which he only dimly aware; and that the concepts of
compassion and justice are nothing more than annoying
flies that sometimes get in the way until they are swatted
dead.
We
may leave the last word to H. L. Mencken who writes:
"The world, for all the pressure of order, is still
full of savage and stupendous conflicts, of murders
and debaucheries, of crimes indescribable and adventures
almost unimaginable."
