When our discussion on Friday turned to sovereignty, I began to question what determines sovereignty. Is sovereignty determined by power, in the sense of ability to rule, or by power, in the sense of money and influence? It has always been the former, but should sovereignty ever switch to the latter, the entire international system would be forever changed. It would certainly undermine the realist perspective. I do not think I would like my governing power to be McDonalds or DeBeers or any international corporation. I think that while profit is a consideration for these groups, they should not have more power than influence. As a representative for McDonalds, I know that we voted for whatever would help us increase profits and for whatever would improve our reputation. If reputation is the only reason for corporations to help others, I do not want to put my faith in said corporations to actually accomplish anything. Admittedly, money does help more than good intentions, and there are some people in corporations who have both. However, such a drastic change with no understanding of the outcome is too risky to consider as a viable choice. And for those of you who believe that Snow Crash is an example of the result, then such an option should really not be considered (for my personal feelings on this, see previous blog post).
On a personal note, I want to take some space in this post to mention how awesome this learning community was. I would not have wanted my freshman year to begin any other way. Living with all of you has been fantastic and extremely entertaining. Sure, when some class conversations continued on the elevator and on L7, they tended to be less academically focused, but I enjoyed them nonetheless J. Thank you all for being my classmates and good friends!
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