Tech companies become the state, phase one

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'..Tech companies have accrued huge amounts of cash, but are not in the business (yet) of owning vast amounts of land. Governments, on the other hand, like religions, universities and other quasi-governmental institutions, are rich in land, but often constrained in their spending by powerful political forces, far removed from local circumstances.

Part of the context here is the role of so-called philanthropic capital, where US companies spend excess cash on the kind of things – housing, education and healthcare – that you’d usually associate with government spending. One way to think about this is as hypothecated tax, paid to alleviate pressure to pay higher conventional taxes, or as a way of building goodwill with legislators. It echoes many of the developments around 19th century industrialisation, from Carnegie’s libraries (now: Bezos) to “corporation parks” in the North of England..''

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