From Nations to Corporations

luka

Well-known member
Amazon released images this week of its new “AmaZen” booths, tiny cubicles designed for its warehouse employees to “focus on their mental and emotional wellbeing.”


The “interactive kiosk” would allow workers to take time out of their shifts to watch short videos, featuring positive affirmations, calming sounds, and guided meditations, Amazon said in a press release.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Consider the value of having a community around a product, a micro-culture that forms around it, consisting of people who enjoy it. An autonomous marketing engine. Considerable value to be realized there, value that will predictably be left unrealized if the executives of the company don't see it, or refuse to see it.

And the community won't form if the company and/or their product comes off as being greedy, manipulative, unethical, etc.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Amazon released images this week of its new “AmaZen” booths, tiny cubicles designed for its warehouse employees to “focus on their mental and emotional wellbeing.”


The “interactive kiosk” would allow workers to take time out of their shifts to watch short videos, featuring positive affirmations, calming sounds, and guided meditations, Amazon said in a press release.
I think Amazon is among those figuring this out, although I doubt the warehouse workers have a complementary acai bar.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Consider the value of having a community around a product, a micro-culture that forms around it, consisting of people who enjoy it. An autonomous marketing engine. Considerable value to be realized there, value that will predictably be left unrealized if the executives of the company don't see it, or refuse to see it.

And the community won't form if the company and/or their product comes off as being greedy, manipulative, unethical, etc.
That said, it seems to still prevalently be the case that the company id disassociated with the product in the mind of the consumer, which de facto abdicates the company and its executives from the sort of responsibility they would have if the consumer were more readily able to make this association.

I'm sure it differs across sectors, but this leaves plenty of room for empty promises. Unless smart contracts are able to realize the value of unbreakable promises.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
China to Establish State Conglomerates in New Strategic Sectors. China’s State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission released a statement saying China will form new state-owned conglomerates focused on strategic emerging industries including industrial machinery, high-end chips and new energy vehicles. Reuters

Haven't looked deeper into it yet, but man China is interesting.
 

luka

Well-known member

from 24.24 she starts talking about the dependence of capitalism on the nation state ('i simply dont buy the argument that the more global the economy becomes the less relevant the nation state becomes, the contrary is true... capital needs an orderly, predictable legal and administrative apparatus more than any other social form has ever done')
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed

from 24.24 she starts talking about the dependence of capitalism on the nation state ('i simply dont buy the argument that the more global the economy becomes the less relevant the nation state becomes, the contrary is true... capital needs an orderly, predictable legal and administrative apparatus more than any other social form has ever done')
True, but I do think a global economy introduces a higher degree of private leverage over national public sectors, e.g. a multinational corporation can just threaten to bring its business elsewhere, coercing a government to nudge policy in ways favorable to the multinational corporation, and in this respect the nation-state is dealt a blow by virtue of the global economy.
 

sufi

lala
True, but I do think a global economy introduces a higher degree of private leverage over national public sectors, e.g. a multinational corporation can just threaten to bring its business elsewhere, coercing a government to nudge policy in ways favorable to the multinational corporation, and in this respect the nation-state is dealt a blow by virtue of the global economy.
this only works if states allow it though, as they do at present, because the people running the states have been bought by business
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
this only works if states allow it though, as they do at present, because the people running the states have been bought by business
I would agree, but I would also add that even if congresspeople were not on the payroll of a given multinational corporation, they (the multinational corporation) would still have leverage, as a driver of economic growth, over the congresspeople in their policymaking capacity.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Combine the promise of economic growth with hefty campaign financing, and the congressperson is rendered somewhat immobile, barring the realization of other leverage options.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
It seems much of the discernible suboptimality of the system boils down to the ruling, of Citizen's United v. The FEC, that corporations can practice the rights of citizens, and perhaps even more so.

Insufficiently familiar with the case to be more certain here.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Under the pretense of uncapped campaign financing being an exercising of free speech, an argument which isn't altogether without merit but nonetheless seems to be in obviously bad faith and entail distinctly undemocratic consequences. Wish I could be more specific and concrete regarding these consequences, but here my understanding wanes.
 

sufi

lala
European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights released a statement
PRESS RELEASE
Historic #bizhumanrights victory! France's Supreme Court ruled: Cancelling the indictment of multinational Lafarge for complicity in crimes against humanity in Syria was wrong! Case must be re-examined by the appeals court.
إ Press release: https://bit.ly/3zS9Vxo
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I think instituting compliance offices and/or inspectors general in these major companies, assuming none already have any, could be a step forward. That was the major takeaway from the Frances Haugen hearing, that congress should demand that Facebook establish a compliance office, which would presumably be somewhat independent of the corporate structure.
 
Top