Oh, the possibilities

Imagine there are no countries, it isn't hard to do. The Médecins Sans Frontières or the doctors without borders have already dared to do so. To be one of them is to make a statement. Are there other such entities quietly in the making? Where membership doesn’t need you to make a stand? Not yet anyway?

There was once a time when the sun did not set on the British Empire. In modern times that very sun always shines on some shade of blue. As businesses continue to evolve from multinational corporations to global enterprises I can not but wonder whether the process of looking beyond the concept of the nation state and the evolution of the “enterprise state” has irreversibly begun.

The current tide is rushing towards globalization. What is a global corporation? Let me quote Sam Palmisano here:

“Simply put, the emerging globally integrated enterprise is a company that fashions its strategy, its management, and its operations in pursuit of a new goal: the integration of production and value delivery worldwide. State borders define less and less the boundaries of corporate thinking or practice.”

It is at this point I would like you to imagine; it’s easy if you try.

The Concept of Nation and Corporation
Before plunging into it, let me back off a bit and talk about both the nation and the corporation. The nation state sharing mutually acceptable borders is fairly a new concept in human history. There still are nations that have not been able to agree on the exact demarcation of “sovereign” rights. There are also cultures that are still struggling to establish their nation states.

Experiments with the modus operandi to running these nation states are far from over. The operating model of some version of governance by the people, for the people, of the people seems to have caught the imagination of a significant number of these nation states.

So the belief in the infallibility of the concept of the nation state is just to give ourselves a frame of reference. It allows us to build a lot of operating models. Quirks remain. Dual citizenship is a debated concept, but is not unheard of.  Now, what about the corporation?

If we look back at history, the corporation achieved the status of an individual or “legal entity” only when the owners were allowed “limited liability”. Then came the international or trans-national corporations, the East-India Company, for example. They relied on the muscle power and military might of the home nation to conduct their trade and commerce.

The MNC, or the multi national corporation, arrived as a solution to post war protectionism. They set up shop in multiple countries and followed the law of the land. This wasn’t a logical state of affairs and built in redundancies that were bottlenecks wealth generation.

Therefore came the strategic alliances and now the global enterprise. Elsewhere, on the canvass of nation states came alliances. Along with political alliances came the economic ones. The European Union, for example, is something that was inconceivable during the World War days.

Imagine the possibilities
Now. Imagine that humanity has come to terms with its biological and genetic limitations. We have learnt that we need to live as tribes and super tribes. Aggression is addressed by football, boxing, WWF and other such means. Every one believes and needs peace, prosperity, wisdom and health. Oh, the possibilities....

Submitted by Saumya Ganguly

Comments

[Ethan]

Saumya, I think this is a very interesting and provocative post. The critique of the prominence of nation states goes being quirks of dual citizenship. I admire your optimism about the potential for corporations to have a positive impact on populations. I think if we look more holistically at what shareholders really value, we'll see that strictly limiting it to monetary gain is an inaccurate reflection of what shareholders want. They also value things like sound environmental practices. Your concept of super-tribes is an interesting one...I tend to agree that humanity has the potential to seek and form connections that supersede traditional geographical boundaries and extend into something more ephemeral, but perhaps more powerful -- and with a tremendous opportunity to bring about positive change and improvements to the quality of life.

[Debbe Kennedy - Global Dialogue Center (former IBMER)]

Dear Saumya,

Your post is visionary and this is how great things happen, big and small, by planting a seed in the minds of others. On the Monday after my last day at IBM, I wrote a poem about this tracing how I had learned to make "dreams come true" through action.

Ethan too seems to see new possibilities.

"Every one believes and needs peace, prosperity, wisdom and health" --- hold this wonderful thought. I think we have the opportunity to reverse the traits Gandhi pointed out were the most perilous to humanity. Here is my vision restating Gandhi's wisdom reversed as affirmations for good:

Imagine the possibilities if we lived these in life and work...

Wealth with work.
Pleasure with conscience.
Science with humanity.
Knowledge with character.
Politics with principle.
Commerce with morality.
Worship with sacrifice.

Thank you...
Debbe