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2000-06-02 || 18:20:49 Microsoft and BC huddling in the lane The BBC reported that British Columbia has offered Microsoft a deal if they agree to move to from Washington state to a more civilised neighbourhood across the Canadian border. Me, I've got some problems with that, not the least of which concerns what such a move would do to BC's already extortionate property values. But it reminded me of something I had read recently. The author John Ralston Saul (who has since turned in his position as 'writer' for the weightier job title of 'Consort to Her Majesty the Governor General of Canada') has an article in the Winter 1995 edition of the Queen's Quarterly which sort of hits on this kind of thing. In Language and Lying -- the Return of Ideology, Saul talks about how we as a society have largely moved from a democratic system to a corporatist one, and how in a corporatist society, the corporation and economy move from being tertiary (you know, tools we use to make our lives go) to central concerns, pushing the democratic tradition to the background. It is no real surprise then that the two most stridently corporatist societies in the last century were Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. A corporatist society is not a democratic one. It can't be, as it is based upon a non-democratic model: the corporation. So we end up with the western society we have to-day: post-democratic, corporatist, with a large �lite making decisions that affect the workers below. Saul also talks about how this corporate �lite owes no allegiance to any nation, instead pledging their loyalty to giant trans-national corporations. Corporations that have no problem emigrating if the taxes are better elsewhere, or there's a government watchdog on their tail. Metrowerks, for instance, was founded in 1985 in Montr�al, and moved to Austin, Texas ten years later. Nortel keep threatening to do the same damned thing if Ottawa doesn't lower taxes for corporations. And now, the BC authorities are offering M$ 'favourable treatment', and a loan to help build a new corporate headquarters. Yurgh ! Of course, being the filthy little red that I am, I have to ask 'what about the consumer ?' After all, the whole reason the US has laws pertaining to monopolies is that a monopoly is never good for the consumer: a monopoly can raise prices and lower services or quality without the fear that people will stream to the competition. After all, there IS no competition... And a consumer usually likes to go by another title: a citizen. Enter BC with its corporate kneepads on. I can't believe that BC is actually trying to help M$ do an end run around the US Department of Justice on this one. Really. I just hope that BC's premier Dosanji will take his lips off of Bill Gates' sweaty bits long enough to slap this one down... Oh-- special note to Mysteria: I've apologised for C�line Dion, Alex Trebeck, Brian Adams, Shania Twain, and about a million other dubious Canadian exports to the US (and most empahtically about Alanis 'simian' Morissette). What in heaven's name can anyone say to me if that evil monstrosity comes up here? |
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shite One last little note... - 09.21.2006 de-stressing, biking and terrorism - 06.06.2006 Mildly stressed... - 05.29.2006 More crime stupidity - 05.28.2006 Scary stuff - 05.25.2006
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