Entrepreneurs Sans Frontieres
Mini Teaser: In the 21st century, it is the businessman who has no nationality.
In contrast, UK billionaire James Dyson was able to move his vacuum production to Asia, despite the huge cloud of controversy that often accompanies such a move. How countries cope with the loss of tax revenue, jobs and even rent--recent research estimates that job losses will equate to 54 million square feet of corporate office space, roughly the equivalent of one-third of Chicago's downtown office area, will be vacated per year in the United States--is an issue continuously being debated.
The more global the world becomes, the more nation-states try to play up national identity, in spite of the multiple passports, residences and offshore registrations of local businessmen. For example, after 9/11, the U.S. government has become increasingly prickly about awarding contracts to non-U.S. companies, managing to block a corporate deal, the sale of six U.S. ports to Dubai Ports World as part of its takeover of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. The congressional uproar has led many foreign companies to publicly assert they are prepared to work with U.S. representatives to make mergers more palatable. A similar wave of foreign-takeover anxiety has swept Europe, with politicians in Italy and France recently calling for a stop to mergers in strategic sectors like utilities and banking. These Western governments seem to want to reassert their authority as citizens become nervous over slowing economies, rising fuel prices and lack of jobs. But the nationalist resurgence may backfire and lead to even more offshore activity if governments impose more regulations and taxes on businesses.
Despite the prevalence of the stateless tycoon, a different style of entrepreneurship is also keeping pace with globalization--one that synthesizes corporate interests and the development of the state. In Kazakhstan a new generation of entrepreneurs wants to expand the country's industrial base and capital markets--and redefine what it means to be a Kazakh trio. They are Kazakh by birth, some trained in the West, but working "at home" to invest their time and money into building Kazakhstan. Every year the Forbes billionaire list proves the power of national identity, as countries with newly minted billionaires--like the Czech Republic's first billionaire, Petr Kellner, or India's ten new club members--splash the news all over town. Perhaps the stateless ego may find that state allegiance has its uses after all.
Tatiana Serafin is a senior reporter with Forbes in New York.