EuropeanPowellJul 24, 2023
Wondering how much public awareness there is about ISDS.
(Investor State Dispute Settlements) - Multinational corporations can sue states for enacting policies they don't like.
A system operates beyond Govts' reach where billions of $ can be leeched from poor countries to the richest corporations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW5dEtjMb-k
Investigative journalist charts how corporate greed has destroyed democracy | Matt Kennard interview

YouTube
Show threadEuropeanPowellJul 24, 2023
Cases with minimum wage disputes, environmental permits to dig for fossil fuels not granted.
So-called sovereign policy-making is being 'chilled' by the system. 'Carve-outs' of territories (charter cities, SEZs), the sham of World Bank Development Aid to alleviate poverty.
Show threadEuropeanPowellJul 24, 2023
Special Economic Zones introduce private laws where strikes are forbidden (ring any bells with Labour and Cons recent mutual backing of destroying rights to protest?). Remember that Shanker Singham has stated that once the deregulatory structure is in place, it cannot be changed by afuture Govt.
Show threadEuropeanPowell
Charter cities around the world have private security firms guarding the zones, a corporate coup necessitates time an planning, this began in the 1950s with r/w economists and libertarians anger at the social contract, they belief democracy and libertarianism are incompatible.
Jul 24, 2023 at 4:32pmWeb
Show threadEuropeanPowellJul 24, 2023
Whatever nominal power is left over for the state is only existing because corporations have yet to figure out a way to totally annihilate democracy. A company can sue a country and extract a significant amount of GDP if objections are raised. #BrexitCarnage
Show threadEuropeanPowellJul 24, 2023
Honduras is being sued for $11 billion by a company that formed an SEZ which was shut down, the GDP of Honduras cannot take a hit that seismic on their economic and social infrastructure. Post-Brexit UK in deep shit. Thinktanks like the IEA (est.1955) sought to tear up the social contract and dismantle the post-WWII egalitarian economics system. ISDS formed in 1960's ergot the foundations of 'corporate governance' firmly in place now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investor–state_dispute_settlement#Historical_development
Investor–state dispute settlement - Wikipedia

Show threadEuropeanPowellJul 24, 2023
Wondering why Tories & Labour aren't keen on renationalizing utilities? Foreign private companies monopolize the system and can issue an ISDS and sue the shit out of the Govt, taxpayers will foot that bill, so effectively there is a corporate stranglehold on public ownership.
Show threadEuropeanPowellJul 24, 2023
Colonialism never ended, it was rebranded. An economic model that proved successful for extreme capital gains was never going to disappear, it would grow stronger and things like social democracy while successful after WWII would always be an oppressive constraint on free trade.
Show threadEuropeanPowellJul 24, 2023
The big denial is that democratic Govt's are working for the electorate when the truth is they work for the corporations, that is what decades of neo-liberal ideology has made flesh, the illusion of democracy is now centre-stage across the world.
Show threadEuropeanPowellJul 24, 2023
Capitalist endeavours across the globe are a sham, they leech public money, development aid to subsidise their corporate interests under dubious slogans like 'alleviating global poverty' when the opposite is true, they are locking entire countries into corporate friendly policies
Show threadEuropeanPowellJul 24, 2023
It should be the duty of Govts to put the welfare of its citizens above corporate hegemony, Sunak's Freeports and 75km SEZs will carve up the UK into mini-patchworks of private competing sovereignties, this is what the Brexit transition period is building for the next 50 years.
Show threadEuropeanPowellJul 24, 2023
Please watch the incredible video, (see 1st post in this 🧵) discussing these issues and buy the book Silent Coup- How Corporations Overthrew Democracy by Claire Provost
and Matt Kennard