Song Sung Blue.

Art from the Song. It ain't Fortunoff's.

Not too long ago, many of the agencies of the Omnicom group were among the best creative agencies in the world. BBDO. TBWA\Chiat\Day. Goodby, Silverstein. Among others.

Maybe they still are. But, I wonder.

In the early 12th Century, the Song Dynasty, occupying much of what we today call China, was by far the world's most advanced civilization.

They were the BBDO, TBWA\Chiat\Day, Goodby, Silverstein of nation-states.

Their per-capita wealth, for instance, would not be matched by European nations until 500 years later, in the 1700s. And would not be matched by modern China until probably 2000.

Besides a strong economy, China under the Song had the strongest navy in the world. They built ships four times as long as the ships that sailed Columbus to the new world and had trade relationships with much of Asia, India and the Arabian world. About four hundred years before the west, the Song were using the magnetic compass, paper money, movable type and paper.

Then, leadership of the Song turned inward. Exploration was out. Even traveling from your village was punishable by death. Borders were closed. Trade was stopped. Foreigners were banished.

Europe in the 1200s was much the same as the closed off Song dynasty. The "dark ages" weren't the result of a shortage of lightbulbs. They were due to the closed-beliefs of powerful states like the Holy Roman Empire or the Hapsburgs, who as long as things didn't change were good for them. 

However, Europe was politically different from China. There were many small states. It was called Kleinstaateri in German. Small-state-ism. 

If you lived in a state that was anti-trade, you could walk 30 kilometers or so and be in another state. Columbus, for instance was turned down by about half-a-dozen nobles before he found one to pay for his voyages. In other words, you could shop around until you found someplace that didn't suck so bad.

That shopping around ability disappeared under the Song. It thrived in Italy and the Hanseatic League when the renaissance bloomed.

When I was a boy in the business, the advertising landscape in New York was essentially a Kleinstaateri. There were literally scores of decent agencies. If you weren't happy with the leadership, the pay, the opportunities, the work, or even the location of one, there was another agency up two floors or over two blocks.

As one of those many small agencies, you had to keep your eye on other agencies. Who was hot, who was dynamic, who was innovating. There was a ferment of ideas. There was competition. There was competition. There was social mobility. 

If you fell behind, you died. So you stay on top of things.

Those are hallmarks of a healthy system.

Today we have a Soviet of agencies. A rigid cabal that controls everything and imposes its will and philosophy (the power of the bottom line) on all. Step out of line and you step into unemployment.

Essentially a monolith-lead industry, lead by entrenched leadership bent not on innovation but on individual enrichment and self-preservation.

The Chiat\Day of pirate days, or the Goodby of kicking-establishment's-ass days are now rectangles on an Omnicom spread-sheet. They're a P and L who have to follow the mothership's modus operandi on pain of corporate Torquemada-isms.

This two year old chart from R3 is severely out-of-date, but still useful as an illustration. Many voices--the little type--have been reduced to just a few voices--the type row of blue type.

Consolidation of wealth and power into monopoly control is often good (for a while at least) for the monopolists who own the monopoly. But like arteries, monopolies, eventually harden and become ossified. The "blood" of a business and its workers stops flowing. They no longer work to get ahead (there is getting ahead). They work to not be fired. 

They no longer work as they should. They usually become dumb, become slow, become obsolete. Especially when someone comes in with a better idea and defeats them. Which eventually happens to most.

The consolidation of wealth and power--1000 years ago in China or 10 minutes ago on Madison Avenue--suppresses innovation, invention, ingenuity for inconspicuousness.

Before long--by age or deportment--you're ruled by a gerontocracy. Risk adverse, cautious, slow, and retrograde.

There are countless nation-states we could learn from. Including the amerkin nation-state in which the well-being of many is sacrificed to protect the enormous wealth of the powerful. 

Good things seldom come from arrangements like this.

You could look it up.