Are Corporations Poised to Overtake Countries?

Will the corporation supplant the state as the world's dominant organizational structure in the coming century? It's a question to which many world thinkers adamantly answer "yes." In this bold vision for the future, national borders gradually wither away as transnational companies become ever more powerful, leading governments by the nose in pursuit of perfect supply chain efficiency. For advocates of this vision, the prevailing trends throughout the world, large companies' growing influence, the giant cash piles of companies like Apple and diminishing trade barriers all point to the coming predominance of the corporation. Skeptics, by contrast, say the obituary for the state is decidedly premature but concede that the corporation is likely to eat away at national power in the decades to come....