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It is interesting to think about these trans-national corporations fighting wars and then signing peace treaties. Used to be only nation states did that.
by bsiemon 8y ago
It is interesting to think about these trans-national corporations fighting wars and then signing peace treaties. Used to be only nation states did that.
- wyattpeak 8y agoThat's a long way to stretch an analogy to make a political point. Were there armies? Soldiers equipped to kill? Or was this a legal dispute of the sort that companies have been engaging in since the invention of companies, and individuals have been engaging in since the invention of the court?
- fhood 8y agoArmies of lawyers I guess. Don't need soldiers if someone else is doing the enforcing.
- simonask 8y agoI mean you are right that in absence of a judicial system and the monopoly on violence exercised by nation states and supranational treaties, a conflict such as this could have been violent. Thankfully that world is far away.
- TimTheTinker 8y agoDidn’t sound like a political point to me, just a reflective/thoughtful comparison.
- erk__ 8y agoI am pretty sure Samsung could mobilize a smaller army, with all the millitary gear they make.
- sonthonax 8y agoEarly corporations fought wars against nation states, peoples, and became sovereign entities. Like the East India Company.
- da_chicken 8y agoThat's a little bit cheating because VOC was backed by the Dutch government, but there were a lot of wars in southeast Asia in the 17th and 18th centuries that came about because of company activity.
- afandian 8y agoNah, private companies have got involved in that kind of thing since forever: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company
- denzil_correa 8y agoUFC : The Chiquita banana company who lobbied for the "1954 Guatemalan coup d'état" - an operation to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan government. Why? The elected president policies were a threat to UFC's exploitative labor practices. CIA involved, Guatemalan government overthrown, dictatorial rule, civil war for decades. The CIA even launched another operation to find the Soviet influence in Guatemala to justify the coup. The operation was a failure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27état
- pecg 8y agoAnd the same kind of practices where done in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Bolivia, Perú, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, to name a few.
- pm90 8y agoThe nice thing is that these wars are now fought in boardrooms rather than battlefields.
- nickpsecurity 8y agoAnd for the "fighting wars" part, let's not forget this one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Outcomes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Outcomes They were quite effective, too.
- digi_owl 8y agoThe world has started to resemble cyberpunk more and more over the years...