Quote from: tenbones;1113239CPRed is *as I understand it* - is the direct timeline from CP2020. It's the intermediary period between 2020 and 2077. I don't think any of them were overtly connected to Mekton (which is fine - though I used a lot of stuff from Mekton as "futuretech" for prototype stuff).

I've not looked forward to a new game release like this in *years*. Hell I think I'm more excited for CPRed than I was for my own game... Okay that's not true, but it's close!!!!

Starblade Battalion was explicitly set in the future of CP2020. Which of the alt.futures lies in between CP2020 and Starblade Battalion is effectively unknown.

Quote from: RandyB;1113240Starblade Battalion was explicitly set in the future of CP2020. Which of the alt.futures lies in between CP2020 and Starblade Battalion is effectively unknown.

Its been so long... I'm gonna have to look tonight! I know I have a copy of that somewhere. Now you got me itching to dig in.

Quote from: tenbones;1113249Its been so long... I'm gonna have to look tonight! I know I have a copy of that somewhere. Now you got me itching to dig in.

I am now vaguely recalling that Cybergeneration was excluded by implication in the history of Starblade Battalion. If so, that's one down...

Quote from: RandyB;1113224I misunderstood. I thought you were conflating the two events.

Yeah. That setting rocked hard. We're on what, the third alt.future? Cybergeneration, CP 3.0, and now Red? And which of those, if any, is the history for Mekton's Starblade Battalion setting?

Unless Maximum Mike has been engaged in twenty years of Harkonnen-esque plans within plans I suspect the answer is "whichever one you want or can shoehorn in the best."

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;1113269Unless Maximum Mike has been engaged in twenty years of Harkonnen-esque plans within plans I suspect the answer is "whichever one you want or can shoehorn in the best."

Quite likely the latter.

Quote from: tenbones;1113114For the sake of discussion - I will challenge this idea. Why not? A government, like a corporation, is nothing more than an organizational structure whose constituents agree to participate in - or are forced to.

For the sake of discussion.

There is one very all important point here you are missing.

A corporation is a legal entity created by government. And is always subservient to it. Always its creature.

People may buy into the narrative that it is the other way around, but that is just an illusion. It is fake news.

National governments always hold the whip hand over corporations.

Always.

Quote from: tenbones;1113114One of the very real issues with any government is the basic idea of solvency. If a government cannot afford to sustain itself - which we've invented a lot of convenient smoke and mirrors since coming off the Gold Standard and allowing the Fed to accrete power, it cannot hold itself together. You can't pay for the soldiers to enforce your will etc. While this isn't an overnight thing, it certainly becomes a very salient issue that demands the realities of the Cyberpunk Future(tm) to be examined.

While solvency is an issue for governments, *cough**Venezuela**cough* -  the issue is an even infinity times x, one for corporations. They cannot print money. A government has a power over its currency that no corporation can match.

Governments get away with financial shenanigans as a matter of routine that would cause any corporation to go into continual bankruptcies if they tried to keep up.

Quote from: tenbones;1113114Cyberpunk generally assumes economic downturns of varying degrees. Generally hyper-wealthy via Mega-Corporations as global entities backed by AI entities that regulate a lot, if not most of the complexities of such systems. National governments by their very nature have to be in direct competition because rampant globalism - via state agencies might not be real, but it they're very much real on a Mega-Corporate level.

National governments are not in competition with corporations at all, and never will be. Corporations are and will always be subservient to them. Only maintaining their good favor as long as they continue to keep the largess flowing into the right government hands.

When corporations fall out of favor with governments, they tend to have assets seized, and fines laid. It never works the other way around. Never.

The fundamental nature of the corporation as a legal entity created by national governments prevents this.

Quote from: tenbones;1113114People have to realize that the notion of a Mega-Corp is vastly more powerful than what we see today. A Mega-Corp isn't just "one thing" - it's a veritable Amazon that controls huge swathes of production, manufacturing, distribution, and in the dark future - the infrastructure and security necessary to keep a hold of it's market-share. Imagine if Amazon owned Googly, Boeing, Lockheed, and a shit-ton of subsidiaries, had most of the politicians in key positions on its payroll, wrote its own legislation "protecting itself legally" with a veritable army of lawyers and judges, tribunals, on an international scale - backed by AI's created by the corporation itself... and the largely gutted U.S. government, which relied on those companies and subsidiaries for its own needs had to compete against them.

So basically "too big to fail". Except that people forget that the government certainly can let them fail if it serves a purpose to do so. Because national governments are never "gutted" in comparison to the corporations that operate under their patronage. That is another false conceit.

Quote from: tenbones;1113114Now imagine that same government had SIX other Mega-Corps of similar stature to contend with - but only with it's own national resources to bear.

See previous. And next.

Quote from: tenbones;1113114This is not to say the government couldn't deal with it... my contention is by the time the government needed to deal with the situation, it would be too late without *massive* bloodshed. And frankly I think the government would collapse first because as we see today, they would be too weak.

When Governments collapse so to goes the fortunes of the corporations under it. The corporation may survive the collapse, but they never ever will come out more powerful than the government they rely on for support. History has shown this to be true.

Quote from: tenbones;1113114That *is* the cyberpunk future which our characters have to deal with. That post-national question... it could be pre-collapse/post-collapse but there IS a collapsing paradigm in there.

This is called Somalia. (or *insert failed nation-state here*) Worth noting that it is not in any way ruled, or run, by any corporation of any size...

Worth noting that corporations actually have a hard time operating in failed nation-states. Kinda hard to pay out a dividend to your shareholders when there is not much of an economy to exploit.

Quote from: tenbones;1113114This assumes we do not go post-scarcity. Which is a fun thing to play with in a cyberpunk game... an adventure where the secrets of cold-fusion are unlocked, and what would governments or Mega-Corps do to suppress/unleash it?

Cold-fusion does not = post-scarcity. It just gives us cheaper power bills, and somewhat cleaner air.

Now back on topic...

Quote from: tenbones;1113114I think Corporations *can* take over. I think that's one of the hallmark conceits of the genre, it's not that government doesn't exist, it's that the government has become so fundamentally weakened, it has outsourced the few things on the federal level it was intended to do.

It is a false conceit of the genre.


Proof: The British East India Company. BEA

At its height:

A full 1/5th of the world's trade came under its influence.

It had it's own private army, with officers trained at a private academy.

It took over most of India by threat, intimidation, bribery or outright war.

In the end when the East India company caused more geopolitical trouble than it was worth, The British Government nationalised the company. The Crown took over its Indian possessions, its administrative powers and machinery, and its armed forces.

What did the HEIC do about that? After all, they were the closest thing to a cyberpunk Megacorp in history; they had control over a country thousands of miles from the British Isles. They had gobs of cash. They had their own army and Navy.

They did jack shit. They rode their golden parachutes into retirement. That's what they did.

Because they were always just a creature of the British Crown and its Government.

National governments always hold the whip hand over corporations.

Always.

In the scope of Cyberpunk, I disagree.  You've drawn a parallel to the EIC, but there were a lot of differences between that and the megacorps as presented in CP. And there's a sizable difference in the way that corporations are treated now from the way they were then. They have rights, and legal representation that is able to fight back against imperious decisions on the part of government. If Donald Trump were to decide to nationalize Amazon today, the whole thing would be mired in court cases for the next sixty years, with nothing happening in the meantime. It just doesn't work that way anymore.

So in Cyberpunk, there's ten of those Amazons running around (we really only have about six), companies that are so big and so dug into every economy around the world that they're beyond the scope of a single government to rule anymore. Your government doesn't like them? They stop providing their key niche service or product to you. Go ahead, try to find it somewhere else. Because they've been in that position for years, they have laws, contracts, and even entire treaties that are dedicated to preserving their control over their niche product. You can't find it somewhere else. You can try to build the capability yourself, but it's likely that they also control the means to build the equipment needed to make the thing. In the end, you're stuck buying it from them somehow.

In the case of Militech and Arasaka, both were rich companies, but neither was diversified, and when it came down to it, all either one was providing was either weapons (militech) or security (arasaka). And they were still strong enough to just fight it out in major cities around the world, and it took actual military force to stop them. President Kress jerking around Donald Lundee doesn't make any sense outside the fact that she'd already mobilized the US military against Arasaka AND Militech forces, and was threatening to finish wiping out his people if he didn't accept her offer. Arasaka didn't even stop in North America until Kress wiped them all out (ofc, even if they'd have surrendered, she was using them as a scapegoat and blaming the Night City Nuke on them).

Anyway, your beholden to basis of argument isn't applicable. CP2020 corps aren't beholden to anyone. They're not quite as free as the ones in Shadowrun (that whole UN-recognized extraterritoriality thing), but they're pretty close.

From another angle, there's always the way that things worked out in Living Steel; as they explored the stars, corporations set up the colonies, when the nation-states tried to exert authority over the corporate colonies (in the form of taxation), the corps had a revolution, overthrew the nation states, offered the former political leaders positions in the corps as an incentive to surrender, assassinated the ones who wouldn't, then went on about their business, restructuring government in the corporate image.  So all the major "governments" in the setting (including the Starguild and Corporate Imperium) were actually corporations in disguise.  Later, one of the CEOs of Imperium decided to be the actual Emperor (a la Julius Ceaser) and took control, but the structure is corporate in nature for pretty much 90% of humanity.

Quote from: Jaeger;1113272National governments always hold the whip hand over corporations.

Always.

While this is true in the real world, one of the core concepts of cyberpunk is the relationship between govts and corps has been broken and govts no longer holds the whip. Perhaps they are competing for the whip. Perhaps the corps now hold the whip. But either way, the "natural order" of govts and corps has been shattered, perhaps that's even cause for the dystopia.

Honestly, there are a lot of dodgy economics in the classic cyberpunk setup.

If you actually get rid of nation-states, you lose the financial and legal frameworks that corporations use to operate. The stable currencies, the stock exchanges, the legal systems themselves.

Cyberpunk also loves to talk about how high tech is made inexpensive by mass production and mass adoption, but every place we actual go to is a murdery slum or a banana republic. Where are all these consumers who are driving prices down? And why are they buying monowire whips and gun arms?

If there are no nation-states, who is keeping the lights on, the toilets flushing, and the faucets running?

Quote from: Panzerkraken;1113280In the scope of Cyberpunk, I disagree.  You've drawn a parallel to the EIC, but there were a lot of differences between that and the megacorps as presented in CP..

The core conceit of the way megacorps are presented in CP, is a fallacious one.

Its a nonsense conceit - like the flat earth theory.


 

Quote from: Panzerkraken;1113280And there's a sizable difference in the way that corporations are treated now from the way they were then. They have rights, and legal representation that is able to fight back against imperious decisions on the part of government. If Donald Trump were to decide to nationalize Amazon today, the whole thing would be mired in court cases for the next sixty years, with nothing happening in the meantime. It just doesn't work that way anymore. ..

Yes it does:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nationalizations/factbox-venezuelas-nationalizations-under-chavez-idUSBRE89701X20121008

While it indeed does depend on who gets into power. Don't ever fall into the trap of "It can't happen here."
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/kfile-bernie-nationalization/index.html

That guy was a presidential candidate, and there's plenty more out there who are already in various government elected offices who share those views. Legal defense? They'll just change the laws. Just like Venezuela did.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1113285While this is true in the real world, one of the core concepts of cyberpunk is the relationship between govts and corps has been broken and govts no longer holds the whip. Perhaps they are competing for the whip. Perhaps the corps now hold the whip. But either way, the "natural order" of govts and corps has been shattered, perhaps that's even cause for the dystopia.

That whole concept is a false conceit. As demonstrated by History and Reality.

Because this:

Quote from: Lurkndog;1113289Honestly, there are a lot of dodgy economics in the classic cyberpunk setup.

If you actually get rid of nation-states, you lose the financial and legal frameworks that corporations use to operate. The stable currencies, the stock exchanges, the legal systems themselves.

Cyberpunk also loves to talk about how high tech is made inexpensive by mass production and mass adoption, but every place we actual go to is a murdery slum or a banana republic. Where are all these consumers who are driving prices down? And why are they buying monowire whips and gun arms?

If there are no nation-states, who is keeping the lights on, the toilets flushing, and the faucets running?

First world nations have trouble with the upkeep of their infrastructure, both physical and financial.  

The same infrastructure that Corporations rely upon to make money.

It defies any kind of belief based in reality that any corporation can pull off what the HEIC still managed to fuck up with over a hundred years of Crown backing.


The economic conceits behind Cyberpunk style Megacorps are no more based in reality than Hogwarts academy for young wizards.

Now if you want to play in a setting with hogwarts economics, like most cyberpunk settings, fine.

But lets not pretend a school for young wizards could actually happen in real life.

Quote from: Jaeger;1113297Yes it does:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nationalizations/factbox-venezuelas-nationalizations-under-chavez-idUSBRE89701X20121008

And how'd that work out for him?

QuoteWhile it indeed does depend on who gets into power. Don't ever fall into the trap of "It can't happen here."
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/kfile-bernie-nationalization/index.html

That guy was a presidential candidate, and there's plenty more out there who are already in various government elected offices who share those views. Legal defense? They'll just change the laws. Just like Venezuela did.

Implying that the law changing power of elected members of the US Congress is the same as a banana republic dictator?  That's a good one.

QuoteThat whole concept is a false conceit. As demonstrated by History and Reality.

Because this:


First world nations have trouble with the upkeep of their infrastructure, both physical and financial.  

The same infrastructure that Corporations rely upon to make money.

It defies any kind of belief based in reality that any corporation can pull off what the HEIC still managed to fuck up with over a hundred years of Crown backing.


The economic conceits behind Cyberpunk style Megacorps are no more based in reality than Hogwarts academy for young wizards.

Now if you want to play in a setting with hogwarts economics, like most cyberpunk settings, fine.

But lets not pretend a school for young wizards could actually happen in real life.

I'm sure yours is fascinating and richly detailed. (/sarcasm)

Good responses! Let's dive in!

Quote from: Jaeger;1113272For the sake of discussion.

There is one very all important point here you are missing.

A corporation is a legal entity created by government. And is always subservient to it. Always its creature.

People may buy into the narrative that it is the other way around, but that is just an illusion. It is fake news.

National governments always hold the whip hand over corporations.

Always.

I actually thought we were assuming we're past that point. I didn't forget it - I assumed for the point of "Cyberpunk" is that "corporations" are not these "tiny" things we see in Amazon, Google, MS, etc. - they're orders of magnitude larger. Mega-Corps are like Japanese Zaibatsu on gamma-irradiated steroids. In performing their corporate functions, they *own* whole swathes of territory, they're their own municipalities, they maintain security, and because of their zaibatsu-like structure maintain their own self-contained economies. They own the subsidiary that acquires raw-material, who then sells it to their other subsidiaries+ to process it, who then uses their own subsidiary distributions companies to get it to markets+ that they then sell it consumers+ and to other corporations and organizations and governments. Where '+' = all the external entities that they mark up their product at each point of the chain which consume them resulting in pure profit.

I'm suggesting such entities would essentially "own" the government which weakened itself from the very existence of these things. Politicians get bought, they institute legislation which benefits these Mega-Corps, which could easily lobby to have the government outsource more and more of their traditional - even Constitutional roles. You can see that happening right now where nearly every amendment is under threat by corporate interests. I'm not saying it's easy - I'm saying it could happen. It would just take time and more unprincipled behavior by an eroding system.

Quote from: Jaeger;1113272While solvency is an issue for governments, *cough**Venezuela**cough* -  the issue is an even infinity times x, one for corporations. They cannot print money. A government has a power over its currency that no corporation can match.

Unfortunately this is already proving to be untrue. We're almost exclusively using fiat-currency now with very little backing up our economies. The US Government is $23-trillion+ in debt, with $120-trillion in unfunded liabilities. We are already *beyond* bankrupt. The only thing keeping it going is faith and participation and fear of the consequences of accepting reality.

That said... you're seeing the first flirtations of corporations creating their own currencies. Not only is the use of digital currencies a gigantic blow to national governments - side story - I LITERALLY passed on Bitcoin back when I first heard about it when it was going for about .25-cents/coin, *because* I thought "There is no fucking way the U.S. Government isn't going to shut this down... and I don't want to end up getting fucked for owning a thousand-dollars worth of shit." This is what happens when I overestimate the intelligence of the Government... And I watched for years like a dumbass (I'm the real dumbass here - so we're clear) as Bitcoin climbed and climbed... and then other cryptocurrencies arrived - and I passed on those... waiting for the hammer to fall... (meanwhile my brother loaded up, including pre-Ipod era Apple Stock) and that hammer never arrived. Now you see Facebook trying to get into the act, and various banks now working on their own.

Quote from: Jaeger;1113272Governments get away with financial shenanigans as a matter of routine that would cause any corporation to go into continual bankruptcies if they tried to keep up.

I draw no distinction. Very few government financial shenanigans do not involve corporate involvement including tacit participation. What governments DO get to do that corporations don't - is absolve themselves of responsibility when push comes to shove. But in my above scenario - I don't see that happening because the "corruption" that would generate "financial shenanigans" would simply be "normal business" and the politician in question would used as a sacrificial lamb to be replaced by another corporate stooge. That would only require that a Mega-Corp control the "media"... or as we have in the FCC now where the committee leaders are former corporate execs in the first place.

Quote from: Jaeger;1113272National governments are not in competition with corporations at all, and never will be. Corporations are and will always be subservient to them. Only maintaining their good favor as long as they continue to keep the largess flowing into the right government hands.

When corporations fall out of favor with governments, they tend to have assets seized, and fines laid. It never works the other way around. Never.

The fundamental nature of the corporation as a legal entity created by national governments prevents this.

Depends. I'm *assuming* we're talking about the West. See above - my assumptions on what it would take for corporations to take over require only slightly different conceits than what we see today. Today's big corporations are not quite big enough. But the path to get there is clearly laid out. Honestly, while I get what you're saying - "corporations are a legal entity etc. etc." - sure that's true. But that's *right now*. An honest to goodness Mega-Corp could *easily* fulfill most of the functions - if even only in a large territory, the functions of a government. Maybe on a state-level? Or multi-state level.

I'd split the difference with you and say - it doesn't require a Mega-Corp to control everything and remove "the government" - as much as it needs to merely keep it weak and lethargic in order to services its own needs. As technology advances, and you see more and more technologically illiterate office-holders get into power, as economic reality exerts itself more - where the value of currency withers which would drive corporate currency values much higher, it makes it easier to influence politicians.

The *real* question is the Government military vs. Corporate capacity to exert real force. That's the big question where I'll cede all the ground to you. It's the big equalizer.

My only defense to that is the will to exert that power.

Quote from: Jaeger;1113272So basically "too big to fail". Except that people forget that the government certainly can let them fail if it serves a purpose to do so. Because national governments are never "gutted" in comparison to the corporations that operate under their patronage. That is another false conceit.

 Again - my conceits are not "modern" corporations. I'm talking about a much larger beast.

Quote from: Jaeger;1113272When Governments collapse so to goes the fortunes of the corporations under it. The corporation may survive the collapse, but they never ever will come out more powerful than the government they rely on for support. History has shown this to be true.

Mega-Corps are multi-national affairs. It depends on the nation in question but the fact that nations can fall all over the place, it doesn't matter to a decentralized multi-national necessarily. As Mega-Corps proliferate, it squashes smaller businesses/consumes them which drives more and more people that earn their wages into their control. The tax-revenue generated by those people are a huge portion of revenue for the Government. It's symbiotic. The whole point of the discussion from my perspective is not one of "Corporations need Governments to exist" - they don't. Venezuela collapsed - all the multi-nationals that did business there did no collapse. Some are still doing business there.

The question for me is - can Corporations subsume government functions and remain solvent in the absence of that government? I say they can. but it would take some very specific conditions that haven't arrived yet... but I'll concede the following:

1) Those elements exist and are growing but other factors might preclude those elements from coming to fruition (world wars, people coming to their senses, singularity events, etc)

2) It *might* be that Mega-Corps simply cannot exist at that scale at all. It might not be a case of "Too Big to Fail" - but simply, at this current time, "Too Big to Work Right Now" but I suspect machine-learning will help a lot in that regard... to our deteriment.

Quote from: Jaeger;1113272This is called Somalia. (or *insert failed nation-state here*) Worth noting that it is not in any way ruled, or run, by any corporation of any size...

Worth noting that corporations actually have a hard time operating in failed nation-states. Kinda hard to pay out a dividend to your shareholders when there is not much of an economy to exploit.

Bad example. Corporations *require* infrastructure to be solvent. Mega-Corporations require even more obviously. So unless a corporation moves into a territory and creates that infrastructure from scratch the chance of monetary success is precipitously slimmer - but this depends on the nature of the business. One wouldn't create a silicon-wafer design factory in the middle of the Sudan... but a mining company (as you see with Chinese corporations) is a different matter.

Quote from: Jaeger;1113272Cold-fusion does not = post-scarcity. It just gives us cheaper power bills, and somewhat cleaner air.

It's a huge factor over time in achieving post-scarcity once the technology proliferates.

Assuming iterative design improvements etc. But my point on this was that Mega-Corps would *never* allow that to happen.

Quote from: Jaeger;1113272It is a false conceit of the genre.


Proof: The British East India Company. BEA

At its height:

A full 1/5th of the world's trade came under its influence.

It had it's own private army, with officers trained at a private academy.

It took over most of India by threat, intimidation, bribery or outright war.

In the end when the East India company caused more geopolitical trouble than it was worth, The British Government nationalised the company. The Crown took over its Indian possessions, its administrative powers and machinery, and its armed forces.

What did the HEIC do about that? After all, they were the closest thing to a cyberpunk Megacorp in history; they had control over a country thousands of miles from the British Isles. They had gobs of cash. They had their own army and Navy.

They did jack shit. They rode their golden parachutes into retirement. That's what they did.

Because they were always just a creature of the British Crown and its Government.

National governments always hold the whip hand over corporations.

Always.

Interesting point. Mega-Corporations require technological advances that HEIC couldn't possibly have dreamed of. But the fundamental difference I'd point out is that for this discussion to be apples-to-apples is that the government has to be sufficiently weakened. And as you pointed out - they were the extension of the Government - not the other way around.

That's the whole point.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;1113320And how'd that work out for him?

Him? He was too soon.

But those views have been gaining traction.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/257639/four-americans-embrace-form-socialism.aspx

Never say it can't happen here.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;1113320Implying that the law changing power of elected members of the US Congress is the same as a banana republic dictator?  That's a good one.

Venezuela has a freely elected national assembly (their version of a congress.)

Chavez did not take over Venezuela by marching in with his revolutionary army; he was first elected to be president. By the people. All nice and democracy like...

That's how they work now. First, they get elected...

Its rather naive to think that such a thing cannot happen here.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;1113320I'm sure yours is fascinating and richly detailed. (/sarcasm)

Like the song says: It's a beautiful world.

Quote from: tenbones;1113339I actually thought we were assuming we're past that point. I didn't forget it - I assumed for the point of "Cyberpunk" is that "corporations" are not these "tiny" things we see in Amazon, Google, MS, etc. - they're orders of magnitude larger.

There's a chicken and egg thing going on. Corporations can never get Mega big without a weak government. So, the government structure is required to be weak today for corporations to get larger than they currently are tomorrow.

Besides, the Mega Corp structure is inherently unstable because of the ownership problems. While it's possible to a company like Facebook to be owned by a single, very rich owner, a company like that cannot expand without selling (or trading away) shares in the company for cash to buy up other, smaller companies. Sooner or later, a majority of the equity of the corporation will be owned by investment firms. Firms which already own other large corporations. Either that or Megacorps will need to go in debt to expand so they will owe massive amounts of money to the banks which, themselves, are owned by investment firms.

So, for Megacorps to come into existence you need a very weak government unwilling to enforce their own anti-monopoly laws and, at the same time, you need investment firms to all agree to allow corporations to endlessly expand. And, even if both of those events occur, the MegaCorps will have so much of their equity owned by the investment firms that those firms, not the MegaCorps themselves, will be in control. The idea of MegaCorps running ops on each other (or, indeed, fighting each other directly) can't happen when both of those MegaCorps are owned by the same people.

Quote from: tenbones;1113339...
I actually thought we were assuming we're past that point. I didn't forget it - I assumed for the point of "Cyberpunk" is that "corporations" are not these "tiny" things we see in Amazon, Google, MS, etc. - they're orders of magnitude larger. Mega-Corps are like Japanese Zaibatsu on gamma-irradiated steroids. In performing their corporate functions, they *own* whole swathes of territory, they're their own municipalities, they maintain security, and because of their zaibatsu-like structure maintain their own self-contained economies. They own the subsidiary that acquires raw-material, who then sells it to their other subsidiaries+ to process it, who then uses their own subsidiary distributions companies to get it to markets+ that they then sell it consumers+ and to other corporations and organizations and governments. Where '+' = all the external entities that they mark up their product at each point of the chain which consume them resulting in pure profit.

Literally just described the HIEC.

Controlled India: They totally controlled the economy of an entire subcontinent.

And had influence over a fifth of the worlds trade. And had their own army and navy.

Still went tits up when the crown pulled their card.

Quote from: tenbones;1113339...I'm suggesting such entities would essentially "own" the government which weakened itself from the very existence of these things. Politicians get bought, they institute legislation which benefits these Mega-Corps, which could easily lobby to have the government outsource more and more of their traditional - even Constitutional roles. You can see that happening right now where nearly every amendment is under threat by corporate interests.

Political interests. Many politicians have a vested interest in allowing such corporate /economic shenanigans.

They get rich passing laws that benefit corporations, because the corporations in question are their bitch.

And when Corporations start thinking they are bigger than the government and stop paying out to the right people, they get body checked; investigated, fined, congressional hearings, etc...

Until they start the largess flowing again.

Quote from: tenbones;1113339...Unfortunately this is already proving to be untrue. We're almost exclusively using fiat-currency now with very little backing up our economies. The US Government is $23-trillion+ in debt, with $120-trillion in unfunded liabilities. We are already *beyond* bankrupt. The only thing keeping it going is faith and participation and fear of the consequences of accepting reality.

Proof that it is true. No corporation can do this, and put off the consequences for so long.

Mind numbing debt levels: Brought to you by 100 years of elected government officials in the USA!

Quote from: tenbones;1113339..That said... you're seeing the first flirtations of corporations creating their own currencies. Not only is the use of digital currencies a gigantic blow to national governments - side story - I LITERALLY passed on Bitcoin back when I first heard about it when it was going for about .25-cents/coin, *because* I thought "There is no fucking way the U.S. Government isn't going to shut this down... and I don't want to end up getting fucked for owning a thousand-dollars worth of shit." This is what happens when I overestimate the intelligence of the Government... And I watched for years like a dumbass (I'm the real dumbass here - so we're clear) as Bitcoin climbed and climbed... and then other cryptocurrencies arrived - and I passed on those... waiting for the hammer to fall... (meanwhile my brother loaded up, including pre-Ipod era Apple Stock) and that hammer never arrived. Now you see Facebook trying to get into the act, and various banks now working on their own.

Meh, banks used to be able to print their own currency in the US. They were still under the US gov thumb.

Quote from: tenbones;1113339..I draw no distinction. Very few government financial shenanigans do not involve corporate involvement including tacit participation. What governments DO get to do that corporations don't - is absolve themselves of responsibility when push comes to shove.

You should, Corporations are the creatures of government. It is a core concept.

The role is impossible to reverse in real life.

Quote from: tenbones;1113339...Mega-Corps are multi-national affairs. It depends on the nation in question but the fact that nations can fall all over the place, it doesn't matter to a decentralized multi-national necessarily. As Mega-Corps proliferate, it squashes smaller businesses/consumes them which drives more and more people that earn their wages into their control. The tax-revenue generated by those people are a huge portion of revenue for the Government. It's symbiotic. .

Of course it is symbiotic. How else are the politicians gonna cash out? But the national government it is based in still holds the whip hand.

Quote from: tenbones;1113339...The whole point of the discussion from my perspective is not one of "Corporations need Governments to exist" - they don't. Venezuela collapsed - all the multi-nationals that did business there did no collapse. Some are still doing business there.

Again, Multi-nationals are still beholden to their home nation.

Quote from: tenbones;1113339...The question for me is - can Corporations subsume government functions and remain solvent in the absence of that government? :

Not in the real world.

Quote from: tenbones;1113339...Interesting point. Mega-Corporations require technological advances that HEIC couldn't possibly have dreamed of. But the fundamental difference I'd point out is that for this discussion to be apples-to-apples is that the government has to be sufficiently weakened. And as you pointed out - they were the extension of the Government - not the other way around.

That's the whole point.

An that point is incorrect, because as creatures legally created by and entirely dependent on government patronage of some kind or another, a reversal of those roles is flat out impossible in the real world.

Look, CP type mega corps are a fantasy invention.

All the tech advancement that you say would make CO mega corps possible = fantasy. Those advances don't exist in real life. It's just more hogwarts.

And that's OK.

People game in fantasy settings all the time.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

I also don't like gonzo fantasy settings like forgotten realms. And I think palladium's RIFTS was one of the dumbest rpg settings of all time.

But there are hardcore fans for all that shit.

It's just not for me.