There is a joke that there are two kinds of economic system. One is socialism, in which the government owns the means of production. The other is capitalism, in which the means of production owns the government.
There is more than a little truth in this quip. When the former Labor senator Sam Dastyari said that ten companies control Australian politics many, including myself, thought he had probably signed his own political death warrant. So it turned out. Stating such an unacceptable truth in the public arena was, to use the phrase from Yes, Minister, 'courageous'. His demise was probably only a matter of time.
Much of what is currently happening in western geopolitics is a battle to maintain that corporate control: roughly globalism versus nationalism. Corporations are aggressive proponents of globalisation because it gives them access to the 'cheapest hands and sharpest minds'; they are able to pick and choose their labour force from anywhere in the world. This has not just destroyed organised labour in many Western economies, it is fast degrading the Western middle class as well, especially in America (on the plus side, though, it has arguably raised hundreds of millions out of poverty).
Globalisation also gives corporations access to world consumer markets, which gives them scale and allows them many strategic options on getting a return on their capital. Usually this involves techniques of arbitrage designed to circumvent national governments — especially their taxes.
The corporations have pretty much had it all their own way for most of this century but two recent events have startled them. One is the election of a US president who says he is an economic nationalist, Donald Trump. The other was Brexit. These events are demonised as 'populism': a curious term of disapprobation in a democracy.
It is true that Trump is an economic nationalist. He immediately rescinded the deeply flawed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would have further cemented corporate global control over the Pacific, half the world economy. He has attacked NAFTA and exploited the inconsistency in Germany's security position by pointing out that Russia is characterised as a mortal threat, yet Germany is creating a gas pipeline that increases its dependence on a supposed foe.
Most of all, Trump has started to hollow out the World Trade Organisation, threatening to walk out 'if it doesn't shape up'. The architecture of globalisation, established over decades, is slowly falling apart, replaced by economic nationalism.
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