Abstract

p208 A century ago, during the early stages of the corporatization of the United States, discussion(about these matters)was quite frank. Conservatives a century ago denounced the procedure, describing corporatization as a "return to feudalism" and "a form of communism," which is not an entirely inappropriate analogy. There were similar intellectual origins in neo Hegelian ideas about the rights of organic entities, along with the belief in the need to have a centralized administration of chaotic systems like the markets, which were out of control. It's worth bearing in mind that in today's so called "free trade economy" a very large component of cross border transactions (which are misleadingly called trade), probably about 70 percent of them, are actually within centrally managed institutions, within corporations and corporate alliances, if we include outsourcing and other devices of administration. That's quite apart from all kinds of other radical market distortions.