Global Business and Nationhood

We’ve seen recently some of the side effects of the globalization of business.  It has been brought to light how banks and other businesses use our laws to bring in temporary workers to take jobs from people already doing them, and use that avenue to later outsource the work to other countries.  We have seen how lax safety regulations in foreign garment factories, producing clothing for our markets, can cause over 1100 deaths from a building collapse.  Many of us don’t know the country that our cars were actually built, no matter the “nationality” of the manufacturer.  We have seen what globalization of business means. 

It is not so much the cheaper labour that drives companies to other countries any more, although that is still the rationale given, so much as the ability to use the laws of one country against another.  Do you have a country where the environmental laws are weak, then let’s put our environmentally unfriendly industry or mining there.  Do you have a country with lax banking laws, so then let’s speculate there.  You get the picture.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not against trade and the movement of goods from country to country.  That practice has been going on since the dawn of time, and probably has more to do with the growth of civilization than any other practice.  Great empires were built on trade, although it has also resulted in great conflicts as well when countries tried to gain an advantage in trade.  And then there was colonialism which locked up resources and markets for the colonizing nation.  But the thing about all of these cases, from ancient times to the colonial era, is that they were done to enrich one country.  It was done for nationhood.  The question is can the same thing still be said for modern globalization?  Are nations and business in conflict?

The one thing that business cannot do is make laws.  Business does try to influence laws as they are made, and they are not above challenging laws that they think may harm their business.  But as of now, they cannot propose nor pass laws.  That is still the purview of the state.  Business, however, is not above making rules within their own organization or within a business group. Many business groups would like to regulate themselves, and some do. 

But global business seeks to be above any single country.  They want unrestricted free trade and unfettered movement of capital from one jurisdiction to others.  Business no longer respects even their home country.  Business has only one loyalty – to their shareholders.  Read the mission statement of almost any big company and you will see their pledge to do business for the benefit of their shareholders.  Since shareholders for such companies now come from all over the globe, the need to be beholden to any particular country or region no longer applies. 

So how will this play out?  Since large businesses now have access to more capital than some small or economically depressed countries, it is not inconceivable to assume that the thought of “bailing out” such countries by one or more businesses will occur.  The business would then “own” the country and be able to rule it and make its laws.  They could run it like a business with a board of directors and a CEO selected by and for the benefit of their shareholders.  The fact that none or very few of its shareholders are from that country would not matter one bit.  Unfettered at last!

As this, no doubt, lucrative business model grew, more and more companies would be tempted to get into the game.  With global banks able to manipulate the currency of any still free country, hard economic times could be imposed on any of them until they were forced to “sell out”, literally.  Businesses in this model would no doubt grow larger as the rich ones could, in effect “socialize” smaller companies or smaller rivals.  Some would argue that this would be a good thing.  Wealth would be spread around the world.  The temptation to war would be significantly reduced since not business would want to see its assets damaged or destroyed.  The world would be run by an elite of smart business executives.  All would be good.

How would life be, however, for the common man and woman?  Well, unless you’re a shareholder, preferably a large one, of one of these companies, probably not very good.  Unfettered laws in favour of business would undoubtedly lead to a very restricted life for ordinary people.  Would you, for example, have any job mobility from one company to another?  Would you be able to raise a grievance against your boss or the company?  Would any sort of trade union be allowed?  Would health and safety needs be considered?  All of these freedoms and concessions that have been fought over and won by working people would no longer be in the best interest of the shareholders would they.  And what will become of judicial matters?  Who would judge disputes and punish crimes?  The businesses?  There will no other authority.

So is the nation state to become a thing of the past in the days of ever growing power by business?  Stay tuned and see what happens in Europe and North America in the next few years of fiscal challenge.

An Explanation of Sorts

Anyone who has ever worked in a busy office, particularly in a supervisory role, knows that you do not have to give explicit instructions to get things done.  It is easier when you trust the people who work for you and who are prepared to carry out your needs.

That struck me this week when I was listening to all the talk about who knew what about the sad events in the Canadian Senate recently.  The current controversy revolves around the PM’s chief of staff giving what most of us would think of as a lot of money to a Senator who had claimed expenses he was not entitled so that the Senator could pay off the outstanding funds owed.  The deed actually happened a couple of months ago, but the payoff only came to light within the last ten days. Now everyone is trying to figure out if the PM himself had a hand in this.  He has said that he did not “sign off” on the payment, and that he only found out about the payment within the past two weeks.  And I believe him on the letter of his statement.

But let me give you a little scenario about how I think it could have happened.  In February and March, things were going pretty bad for the Senator in question when the extent of his undeserved expenses came to light.  Since said Senator was a member of the PM’s party and had been appointed by the current PM, it was spoiling the image of that party.  I suspect that one day, the PM expressed to his chief of staff that he wished that some way could be found to make the problem go away.  The PM didn’t have to tell him explicitly how to make this happen.  He trusted that the CoS would find a way. The chief of staff found a way.  So the PM had deniability of the facts.  But does he really have deniability of the direction he probably gave?

Who Knew . . . ?

Who knew a blogger could get writer’s block?  I seem to have had that for the past week or more.  Ideas would come bubbling forth, but the words would not follow.  I have started two or three efforts in that time, but I ran out of words after only a paragraph or two.  Here I am hoping to post a blog every few days, and this happens.  This is not performance.

Then thinking about it, I thought about the whole question of writing.  Not business letters or reports.  I’ve done hundreds of those over my professional career.  Plans, presentations and critiques I’ve done by the dozens.  No, I was thinking of creative writing, either fiction or non, including this blog.

My desire to write goes back many years. I even talked about it in university.  The thought never really left me, but most of the time I was too busy writing those plans, letters, reports and presentations.  I concentrated my left over time to reading.  I read hundreds of books over the years, mostly history or mystery.  Still, I kept telling myself I could one day do it myself.  I finally got started when I retired from full time work.

My opportunity came when I attended a reunion with the men with whom I survived a terrible calamity in the Navy.  They kept asking when someone was going to capture their story.  So, forty years after the event I undertook that task.  The result, after a year of effort was the book “We Are as One”, the story of the worst peacetime disaster in the history of the Canadian Navy.  It even got published and it was well received by its primary audience – my survivor shipmates.  It felt good to do something original and tell an unknown story.  I must admit I felt proud of my accomplishments.

But once you have tasted the fruit of success, you want to do more.  You don’t want to stop at just one.  So after that, I looked for additional ideas and tried my hand a few short stories, one of which, “Retirement Age” appeared in an earlier posting on this site.  I think I also wrote the shortest short story ever created, one paragraph, which hasn’t seen the light of day outside my computer yet.  Maybe one day, I’ll get brave and post it on this blog, but I warn you, it isn’t pretty.

I find writing a wonderful avenue for exploring ideas and expressing yourself.  With the word processing capability of the modern PC, you can write, edit, put aside and even delete just about anything you want.  You can start an idea and put it aside until you come up with additional words or thoughts to change or enhance it.  Maybe some of the ideas that I started over the last couple of weeks, but ran out of words, will yet show up on this blog.

And that brings me to the latest iteration of my writing endeavors, this blog on JGForbes@blogspot.ca.  With the byline, “You Can’t Have it Both Ways”, it is a way for me to express and hopefully share some of my ideas and ideals.  I hope that you, dear readers, will indulge me in that and perhaps find something interesting along the way. For that indulgence, I thank you.  Here’s hoping that I don’t run out of words very often.

Summertime, Summertime, Sum, Sum, Summertime!

If I have been remiss in not posting any blogs for a couple of weeks, you can blame it on the onset of summer-like weather here in Ottawa.  Being able to get the outdoor furniture from its winter dungeon, watch the grass and trees start to turn green, and contemplate the possibilities for golf this year are all part of the phenomenon.  Mid-twenties temperatures don’t hurt either. 

Of course, summer also means baseball and golf. For a player, golf is a game you can play all your life.  It gets you a few hours outside walking and swinging, and can lead to meeting some nice people.  Baseball is the most social of spectator sports.  Unlike hockey or football where you always seem to be surrounded by yelling and screaming, baseball, with its more leisurely pace, allows social interaction.  It is a great way to spend an afternoon or evening with friends or family, particularly children or grandchildren.  What could be better?

We all look forward to this time of year, even, I suspect, die-hard winter sports fans.  Of course, like all Canadians, we find some problem with the weather, no matter how perfect it appears.  My dour, old Scottish Grandma, on a lovely summer day, would inevitably observe, “We’ll pay for this.”  Canadians, and apparently Scots, cannot seem to believe that there is any such thing as a perfect day.  However, I would point out that these sudden warm days of spring, with their moderately hot temperatures, low humidity and cool nights, sure must come close.

I have experienced summer in a number of places and climates.  I grew up in Hamilton, Ontario where the sooty air could become so oppressively hot and humid.  I spent a few summers in Victoria, British Columbia where you could have some absolutely fabulous summers interspersed with summers of what seemed to be constant rain.  In Halifax, too many summers were spent waiting for the coastal fog to clear.  I was there in 1967 where ships from navies all over the world gathered for a Naval Assembly to honour Canada’s Centennial.  The fog was so persistent during that week that the only photograph that captured the entire fleet was taken at two o’clock in the morning when the fog had cleared for a few hours.  I survived two summers in Charleston, South Carolina where you treated those months from June to August the same as we spend winter here – mostly indoors.  The heat combined with the coastal humidity restricted outdoor life to early morning or late evening.  From four to seven o’clock every evening, a band of thunder storms would pass through Charleston and vicinity.  It might not rain at your home every evening, but you could guarantee it would rain someplace.   My wife spent two years in Florida and the weather was much the same there in summer.  I must admit, however, the other nine months of the year in Charleston were worth the three months of an uncomfortable summer.

For all of the complaints we may have about summers in eastern Ontario, our summers aren’t really so bad after all.