The Emergence of Transnational Corporate State

Transnationalism refers to the spread of economic, political and cultural processes beyond national borders. It has been happening quite for some time now and is gradually leading towards the formation of a transnational state. It has been initially triggered by globalisation and its pace has quickened because of the world getting increasingly interconnected with free flow of financial as well as human capital across borders. The change is gradual, consistent and irreversible with few exceptions here and there.?

Election Funding?

In democracies, elections the essential processes are becoming increasingly expensive exercises that have to happen after every few years as a part of the political process. The political parties of all hues need to contest elections for which they need vast amounts of money. Where does this money come from? The corporations that have access to huge funds at their disposal fund all the parties, ruling as well as the opposition. Why do these corporations fund them,?what for,?what do they want from politicians in exchange, they get the politicians to frame policies to suit them.

In such a scenario who are the politicians supposed to be working for??Whose interests they are supposed to serve,?their masters, the corporations not the subjects, the citizens. Thus, as a result, the politicians end up as mere pawns in the hands of corporations and lose their rights to exercise their minds, free will and mortgage their rights to their corporate masters. They have no option, do they??

An economy is a set of interrelated?processes of production, consumption and distribution of goods and services used to fulfill the needs of people.?When we scramble through the news it is found that the countries are being referred to and treated merely as economies and their citizenry just consumers not persons.

Dual Citizenship

Many countries have introduced dual citizenship, many people are having multiple citizenships and as a result, their loyalty gets divided to multiple countries they happen to avail the citizenship and associated privilege of. A person with dual citizenship is a citizen of two countries at the same time, which may have both advantages and disadvantages but it definitely dilutes the concept of sovereignty and indirely aids in making it a step closer to the formation of the transnational state.?

Dual citizenship may happen automatically in some situations in some countries, such as when a child is born in the U.S. to parents who are residents of a foreign country the child also becomes a citizen of the US. Dual citizenship can also be obtained through legal processes permitted by many countries.?

A whole lot of countries that allow dual citizenship are Albania, Australia, Barbados, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Kosovo, Latvia, Malawi, Malta, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Citizenship by Investment

Many developed countries have put in place policies where anybody who has the money at their disposal can buy citizenship of that particular country by investing a particular amount of money, these are called investment visas or citizenship by investment without a typical visa and passport system.?

The countries that provide citizenship by investment are Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, Austria, Dominica, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Ireland, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Portugal, Spain, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Turkey, UK, United States and Vanuatu. This list is growing.?

Tax Haven Countries

A tax haven is an offshore country where taxes are levied at a very low rate for foreign investors with no residency or business presence required to benefit from their tax policies. Additionally, tax havens share limited or no financial information with foreign tax authorities. There are a multitude of small island countries that serve as tax havens and their economic models are to provide such services by hiding the incomes of these corporations.?

Besides, the multinational corporations employ a whole bunch of expensive solicitors and accountants to manipulate the taxation laws of the countries of their operations and avoid taxes and do not pay any taxes anywhere.

While high-tax countries lose corporate tax revenue from businesses shifting profits elsewhere, tax havens can reduce the cost of financing investment in those countries, indirectly facilitating economic growth. Though tax havens may seem questionable, investing through a trust or company in a tax haven is legal. These tax havens have high levels of OECD compliance and have bilateral tax treaties.?

The top ten tax havens in the world are, Luxembourg, Cayman Islands, Isle of Man, Jersey, Ireland, Mauritius, Bermuda, Monaco, Switzerland and the Bahamas.

Luxembourg is considered to be the best tax haven in the world. According to a report from Citizens for Tax Justice and U.S. PIRG Education Fund, approximately 30% of U.S. Fortune 500 companies have subsidiaries in Luxembourg. For example, Amazon funnels all of its sales in Europe through its official European headquarters in Luxembourg.

The Cayman Islands currently hold banking assets equal to one-fifteenth of the world’s total $30 trillion in banking assets. In addition to having no corporate tax, the Cayman Islands impose no direct taxes on residents, including property, income, and payroll taxes. The Caymans are especially popular with hedge fund managers because there is no corporate or income tax even on interest or dividends earned on an investment.?

Shareholders

As the corporation's have their operations across the borders over multiple countries and so are their shareholders. Similarly, their shareholders may have multiple nationalities and multiple passports. As a result the shareholders of these corporations have no moral or social bindings with any countries but only to profits, dividends and bonuses as they possess multiple passports.?

In such a scenario, It becomes imperative for corporations to take on social obligations. But why should they do so? They don't have any motivation or regulator, their only motivation is profit. Social obligations fall outside their purview.?

Roles Reversed

The political parties being dependent on corporations for contesting elections the government's of all dispensations end up being subservient to these corporations as a result. Instead of governments regulating the corporations and holding them accountable, the equation gets reversed and the corporations start dictating terms and regulating the governments and get the governments to pass the rules that suit them.

The citizens are being thus reduced to merely being cogs spruiking the corporations unaware involuntarily left with no other option either. It can rather be said that the transnational state thus emerging will be controlled by corporations or better we call it a Corporate State.