another organ of state

recently, i’ve been reading “creative capitalism” by michael kinsley…from it, i started toying with the idea of the legal/academic creation of another organ of state but have yet to come up with a term for it.

regardless, i revisited the case of the murdochs being questioned before a select committee to augment my understanding of that organ of state in my mind. however, i realised that the murdochs were called to stand as “witnesses”, not “defendants”! lol :p so my constitutional question of private citizens being scrutinised by parliament has been answered. darn, put my foot in my mouth…it was more about the constitutional issue of the right to silence and the sub judice rule at play in murdochs’ case.

back to the idea of a “new” organ of state…the rigour of innovating and redefining political thought is not what i’ve authority or ability to do but it’s something which i think requires more scrutiny given the flexible nature of liberal democracy as well as the economic turmoil of the recent years. influential public companies and their leading corporate executives…more public scrutiny, accountability and a clearer separation of powers from the government and legislators? would we be able to do that without impeding the free market?

corporations today are different from the companies of pre-globalisation. today, their influence is far-reaching and can be even more detrimental than the collapse of a political system (think: collapse of lehman vs collapse of the ussr)! case in point, the recent sopa/pipa debacle is one indicator of their scope of power. and although business-moneyed folks have had their fingers in the pie of politics all throughout history (colleen mccullough’s depiction of gaius marius comes to mind), it has only been in recent times when the wealth of such business people and their companies can exceed the GDP of nations or have the ability to cause domino-like recessions in varying parts of the world. besides, with the flattening out of the world through technology, the economics of business/business of economics affects more than just the people in its own jurisdiction.

should we continue to let such unbridled power be left unchecked? and at what cost to capitalism?

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anyways, here is ed miliband expounding on social responsibility…a huge part touching on my “new” organ of state…(although this speech is so insipid, i’ve a crush on ed miliband *squee~* looking like wallace makes him even more adorable! hahaha)