All across the world, the power of the national governments dwinded, in their place rose the
megacorporations.
Where once there had been senates, parliaments and the electorate there were now only shareholders.
Citizens became employees.
Have you heard this story before?
Probably.
The idea of a megacorporation or group of megacorporations taking over the responsibilities
of a government is one that’s been around for a while, and there are plenty of examples
across alternate worlds.
But is it believable, and more importantly, does it make for an interesting setting?
In my opinion, the answer to both of these is “not really”.
Megacorporations definitely have a place in worldbuilding, but as soon as that corporation
becomes what's known as a “Corporate Republic” I lose interest pretty quick.
So before we get into it, just so there’s no confusion, allow me to explain exactly
what I’m talking about here.
As with most things related to political structures, the exact nature of a Corporate Republic can
be nebulous, but for the purposes of this video, I’m going to define it as the following.
A form of government run like a business in which all aspects of society are privatized
by a single, or small group of companies.
The ultimate goal of this state is to increase the wealth of its shareholders.
The government acknowledges its status as a corporation.
So lets start first with why I think this type of nation isn’t very believable.
In our own world various corporations have reached an almost unprecedented level of economic
power, but this still pales in comparison to Earth’s most powerful nations.
Long before a corporation ever approached the ability to compete with the of the United
States for example, it would have been crushed under the weight of various antitrust laws.
These type of laws have been around since the time of the Roman Empire and they’re
now a global standard of international trade.
It’s not likely that they’re going anywhere.
But let’s assume for the moment that somehow this balance of power shifted dramatically
and a corporation was able to buy control of a country.
Either an impoverished, corrupt state, or even a modern developed nation.
Now, I am not an economist but I do know the the world’s economy is tremendously globalized.
It would be outright impossible for any powerful nation or corporation to exist without a constant
influx of resources, capital and talent from across the planet.
A corporation taking over a country sets a dangerous precedent and I imagine that other
major nations across the world would be more than willing to embar go the new corporate
state until it collapses.
Or at the very least strengthen their own anti-monopoly laws to prevent it from spreading.
But even if a corporation was somehow able to get away with this, controlling a nation
is probably just a giant waste of money.
Diversifying is one of the riskiest corporate strategies and there’s no guarantee a company
would even be able to effectively manage a country, let alone make any sort of profit.
In 1982 Colgate launched a line of frozen dinners, it went so badly that even sales
of their toothpaste plunged.
Take the complexity of producing and marketing frozen dinners, multiply it by a few trillion
and that’s probably somewhere in the neighborhood of the difficulty of running a national government.
So while Weyland Corp might be able to buy an island in the Pacific, by the time they
developed the necessary infrastructure, paid for all their employees to relocate and attempt
to keep all of this organized, they’d probably be bankrupt.
So while dominating a country through economic means is probably out, what if a corporation
somehow was able to establish its own private military, one powerful enough to force the
surrender of a major nation state.
Well, private military corporations do exist, and many continue to support major militaries
in various peacekeeping roles and others have even proved decisive in winning civil wars.
But the key factor here is that in each instance, these companies were fighting a poorly equipped
and trained opposition and they didn’t need tremendously powerful and expensive hardware.
Against a Russian armoured column or US Navy battle group, even the most powerful PMC would
last all of two minutes.
Russia can afford to maintain thousands of tanks and the United States can operate 10
aircraft carriers without either country worrying about their profitability.
A corporation by contrast would have tremendous difficulty doing the same, even if they somehow
managed to justify the expense to their shareholders.
There just isn’t a lot of profit to be found in showing up to the United Nations and declaring
war on everyone.
Nobody with a stake in the company would agree to it.
Now the last major opposition I have to the believability of a corporation taking control
of a government has to do with national identity and ideology.
Nations are typically founded on great principals and values and regardless of how well a country
does at living up to these, the fact that they are often enshrined in declarations and
constitutions is a very powerful motivating factor.
Across history, hundreds of millions have fought, bled and died for abstract concepts
like freedom, democracy, communism and many others.
But a corporation by its very nature exists solely to make a profit for its shareholders
and I think it would be very hard to find anyone willing to put their life on the line
so their CEO could become a little richer.
If OMNI Consumer Products declared war on the United States tomorrow, how many of its
own employees would side with the company over their country?
Not enough for them to win at the very least.
So now that I’ve finished talking about how completely unlikely it is that a megacorporation
could ever take over part of the world, I should probably mention an example of where
basically that exact thing happened.
At its height, the British East India Company ruled over much of the Indian subcontinent,
maintained its own private army twice the size of the British military and its wealth
was measured in the trillions, far more than even the largest modern conglomerates.
So does this prove everything I’ve said is completely wrong?
Well I don’t think so, in fact it’s probably the opposite.
Despite its size, the East India Company was only sporadically profitable and required
frequent government intervention to stay afloat.
Corruption was widespread and its armies were forced to put down almost constant insurgencies.
During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, which would see the collapse of the company, many
of its own armies were the first to revolt.
When the British Empire decided to assume direct control, the East India Company, for
all its power was helpless to stop it.
But for the sake of argument, let’s just say that some amazing new technology has allowed
future corporations to amass unthinkable wealth, power and private armies.
Through some brilliant political and economic maneuvering that perfectly manages to sidestep
all my concerns, it somehow manages to take control of a major nation or even the entire
world.
I still don’t find this very interesting.
And it all goes back to my ideology argument.
When coming up with a world and storyline, whether for games, movies, books, whatever,
I prefer that opposing factions have different philosophies and different principals.
In Warhammer 40,000 the Tau Empire and Imperium of Man, to put it mildly, have very different
ideas on how the galaxy should be run.
This makes them great antagonists.
In The Mutant Chronicles, or MERCS, why should I care which Megacorporation defeats the others?
They all want basically the same thing and aside from a few superficial details, are
basically identical to one another.
Lastly, a Megacorporation can be counted on to act in its own self interest, which is
always profit.
This makes them kinda spineless.
The Rebel Alliance will endure sacrifice and hardship to liberate the galaxy, no matter
the cost, while the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation will immediately give up on taking
over the Frontier the second it starts affecting the bottom line, that’s not very intimidating.
So are there any exceptions?
Well I can mention a couple.
I find the Caldari State from Eve Online somewhat interesting in that it’s not a single megacorporation
but a coalition that operates their government.
This addresses many of my issues, but raises many more questions?
How is this government run, how is this system stable?
How do organizations like the armed forces operate?
There many be answers to these questions, but I’m not knowledgeable enough in Eve
lore to answer them.
There’s also the Helghan Corporation from Killzone, although I’m slightly cheating
here because the Helghan Corporation completely abandoned any pretense of being a company
the moment it transitioned into the Helghan Empire.
So I’ll end this video by saying that while I don’t think Megacorporations make particularly
believable governments, they can still be a captivating element in any setting.
A megacoporation that acts behind the scenes, manipulating governments rather than trying
to control them is not only more realistic, but more interesting in my opinion.
Weyland Yutani, the Tyrell Corporation, the Iron Bank, these are all examples of Megacorporations
done right.
But that is just my opinion, which means that it is an undeniable fact because I and I alone
sit atop a fortress of unassailable truth.
But if you still think I got it all wrong, let me know in the comments below.
Can a Megacorporation work as a government?
Is fighting for profit just as interesting as fighting for communism or the Kaiser?
Could Omni Consumer Products take over the United States?
I’ll be very interested to hear your thoughts.
But if you’d rather yell at me in person, more or less, the Templin Institute does have
a discord server!
Follow the link in the description below and join the conversation.
Thanks for watching!
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