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State Inc.
Joshua Kurlantzick, Boston Globe
The most important new forces in global business are aggressive, wealthy, and entrepreneurial. But they aren’t corporations: they’re authoritarian governments.
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… In the past five years, governments around the world have been transforming themselves into deal makers and business players on a scale never seen in the modern era. In China, state-owned oil giant PetroChina has become the largest company in the world, worth more than $1 trillion. In Russia, state-owned Gazprom has grown into the world’s largest gas company. States are also wielding influence by directly buying into major private firms: The investment fund run by the Arab emirate of Abu Dhabi is now the world’s largest, and recently spent $7.5 billion to become the top shareholder of the American financial giant Citigroup. Singapore’s state-controlled wealth fund, Temasek Holdings, sank $5 billion into Merrill Lynch, the largest US brokerage. By 2015, according to an estimate by Morgan Stanley, such state-owned funds will control a staggering $12 trillion, far outpacing any private investors.
The rise of states as global economic players marks a sharp reversal from decades in which private enterprise seemed an unstoppable force in global finance, commerce, and culture. It represents a new and unexpected fusion of state control with the business principles of capitalism. And it is already causing a significant shift in global power.
The new state capitalists – China, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and others – are primarily authoritarian nations. And as they become bigger commercial players, they are gaining new influence in a realm once dominated by the democratic West. Some political scientists, such as Azar Gat of Tel Aviv University, who coined the phrase “authoritarian capitalism” to describe the trend, see these countries as the first major threat to the idea of free-market democracy since fascism and communism.
(16 March 2008)
Long article, unfortunately tinged by ideology. -BA
New Energy Diplomat Says Most Oil In State-Run Hands (video)
The National Academies via Energy Policy TV
Reuben Jeffery III, Under Secretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State, who also serves in the new position of Coordinator for International Energy Affairs, addresses the security, environmental and other foreign affairs aspects of oil supply and energy policy, particularly as emerging economies seek more energy to sustain their growth.
(13 March 2008)
Other videos from the conference available at the Energy Policy TV site.
James Schlesinger: The Geopolitical Context of America’s Energy Future (video)
The National Academies via Energy Policy TV
James Schlesinger, Chairman, The MITRE Corporation and Senior Advisor, Lehman Brothers and the first US Energy Secretary, Schlesinger addresses the geopolitical aspects of oil and energy supply from the perspective of a study he and former CIA Director John Deutch led for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the enhanced position of nations who export oil, including Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
(13 March 2008)
Other videos from the conference available at the Energy Policy TV site.
