Working From Home.

What if the corporate and financial sectors jointly invented a new country or maybe bought an island that became their very own nation state. It needn’t be large, just a few square miles where they could gather together to make new rules on taxation, their own legal system and so on. Corporatia as it might be called would then join the ranks of world trading nations. Its corporation tax could be zero%, courts could favour corporations and judges appointed from the ranks of corporate lawyers. As all their transactions whether through ebay, Google, Amazon or even domestic coffee shops were transacted from Corporatia they would be subject to Corporatia’s taxes and financial rules, and as those taxes and rules were so favourable to large multinationals they would soon find themselves transacting business from within its shores. Corporatia itself being small, isolated and far too hot would have little need of a human population except for a few IT engineers and maintenance staff and all other aspects of production, sales and admin etc would be located wherever they proved cheapest. Corporatia would then set about making trade agreements with other countries who could not afford to be disconnected with the new hub of world business even if Corporatia’s secrecy policy didn’t allow them to see the actual text of the agreement and it would decimate their own government’s taxation revenues. And if governments complained they would have little hope of winning their case under Corporatia’s legal system under which if they opted out or in any way failed to comply with the legal system’s requirements would be subject to many billion-dollar penalties. This fable, as far fetched as anything Jonathan Swift might imagine, is a close approximation to the new TPP free trade agreement shortly to supersede America’s much objected to existing NAFTA free trade agreement. It’s truly gobsmacking in its implications and may already be one of the root causes of the current European and UK deficits. And as Corporatia has little need of human beings it cares little for poverty, starvation, the outsourcing of jobs, legislation protecting workers, human rights, food safety, low cost medicines and the environment. Just thought you’d like to know.