Corporations are still nominally governed by nations. The US started a trade-war. The Chinese state interferes in IPOs. But in general, the ability to own corporations is weak because corporations are globally mobile. So if not tech or mercantilism, what then?
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It is still possible to argue with a straight face that healthcare should primarily be an individually purchased market commodity, and you should get what you can afford, same as the logic of diamond rings or pizza or cars.
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But the flip side of that is: if you make individuals responsible for their own health, they won't accept any share of responsibility for collective health. They won't accept lockdowns or isolation or masking mandates, let alone allow state-enforced quarantines. Result: 267k dead
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Healthcare, unlike say transportation, is *irreducibly* collective due to the existence of pandemic threats. There is no meaningful debate like there is between private cars vs public transit. A market fundamentalist who does not recognize this is signing up for death-by-market.
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You could argue that energy can become irreducibly collective if climate change progresses enough, but healthcare is already there. Healthcare has to be minimally collectivized at a level I suspect private insurance alone cannot achieve.
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So back to nation-state competitiveness... if nations compete on healthcare, and are forced by nature to do it in a collectivized way over the objections of screaming red-scare types as the bodies pile up... how do they pay for it? What's the tax base in this world?
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If wealth and income gravitate to the wealthy and middle classes, linked to employment or work for MNCs, income and corporate taxability become as mobile as capital itself. Countries were already trying to fence in capital, and will get way more aggressive in the future.
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Both human and capital mobility will go down in the future, but I suspect capital mobility will go down more. Covid has created a small, tight window of opportunity where the corporate world is in bad trouble and needs state bailouts across the board.
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For a few years, the corporate world is basically like a public utility. Especially things like airlines. I expect countries to move aggressively to maintain ability to generate tax revenue. This even affects solopreneur internet commerce (tried selling courses in Europe?)
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This will succeed to only a moderate level since the imperative to make a profit and operate in the best markets precedes tax opportunities. Overall, I think governments will never fully dig out of the Covid hole, especially federal levels worldwide.
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My suspicion is that city-states will get stronger in their ability to create captive tax-revenue streams from a low base, while nations will weaken from a high base. And healthcare will increasingly get linked to cities.
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Already the best hospitals are in cities... where collective health threats are also highest. You can temporarily flee cities for the countryside, but the diseases will eventually reach you, but you'll have to go to the healthcare in the cities.
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So that's the future. Nations competing for tax revenue ultimately linked to multinationals driving tech progress, and using it to compete with each other on healthcare for aging populations... while US and oil decline from a peak and divergence rules and cities rise > nations
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I'm not sure how crypto will play frankly. At the moment it seems like some mix of nations and corps will be able to control it.https://twitter.com/dhruvbansal/status/1333497900748431362 …
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Footnote: things that are probably over-rated analytically and probably have no big part to play in the future: 1. UBI 2. Georgism/LVT 3. Anarchism of any flavor 4. Fully decentralized anything 5. "Post-capitalism"
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End of conversation
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