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State-sponsored identity construction is a thing of the past. Tomorrow's citizens will be shaped by multinational corporations. 

In 2016, according to Fortune magazine, the revenues of the world’s 100 biggest companies equaled 16.7 percent of the world’s GDP. If Walmart—the largest company in this list—were a country, it would have the 24th largest economy in the world, just after Sweden. Multinational corporations (MNCs) today are perhaps the most influential non-state actors when it comes to shaping individual and group identity. Relative to states, MNCs possess many advantages in this realm.

 

First, their footprint is far wider than that of the state. In most countries, citizens encounter the state infrequently on a daily basis, and state-sponsored identity construction takes place largely within bounded institutions such as the education system and state-sponsored media. MNCs by contrast are ubiquitous and their presence subtler. Particularly in advanced industrialized countries, an individual is first a consumer and then a citizen.

 

Second, even in the domain of official identity construction, technology—produced by MNCs—mediates the interface of state and citizen. Books, newspapers, and radio broadcasts were static and largely one-way interactions. Today, the internet and smartphones allow a far more complex and interactive process of media consumption in which technology itself can shape choices, self-conceptions, and ultimately behavior. At a broader level, the rapidly expanding frontier of technological innovation forces us to continuously revisit our sense of self. Smartphones, 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence, genetics, and even hacking continue to redefine our perception of who we are and what we are capable of doing.

 

Third, MNCs and their associated technological innovations are relatively politically neutral compared to states. Governments are viewed as sources of fear, suspicion, and patronage—technology, at first blush at least, does not carry such associations. The global narrative surrounded digitization, automation, and connectivity is one of empowerment and social as well as physical mobility. Although states can now more easily utilize technology to shape individual identity, they are not the only actors with access. Non-state actors such as NGOs and terrorist organizations are able to harness communications technologies just as effectively in order to undermine the state’s legitimacy.

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Finally, MNCs are global, and technologies once created have a way of spreading rapidly across state boundaries. The resulting interpenetration of societies gives other states and non-state actors the ability to shift or shape the collective conscience of a society, often with the added advantage of plausible deniability. Today, a Whatsapp message or a fake news website can sway public opinion more effectively than any official press release.

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Given the centrality of secure property rights to economic growth and technological innovation, MNCs will undoubtedly grow in their relative strength and influence. Their long-term impacts on individual and group identity, as well as the potential for states to reclaim the narrative and process of identity construction, deserve greater attention as humankind continues to break new organizational and technological barriers.

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