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! Templin Institute Discord Server
Man has a lot of good points.
One point that should be added, however, is that this:
Is a blatant contradiction in terms. Once the corporation becomes the government, the interests it owns aren't private businesses anymore. They are, by definition, nationalised ones. A lot of worldbuilding involving corporatocracies does not get this, and keeps talking about capitalism and the free market when what they're describing is obviously a mercantilist command economy.
I had a world with a Megatradeunion. I thought it was fitting as Megacorporations are such a common trope that it would make sense for labor to organize against it. In that world they use anti-immigration policies in order to create an artificial labor shortage. It is similar to the White Australia Policy that led Australia to become a 'Working Man's Paradise.' This retards economic development, but does increase living standards for the working class. They also get involved with organized crime and start buying up their own economic assets, legal or otherwise. They meet their end when there is a civil war in their country, after which the government makes a huge power grab and takes over the Megatradeunion.
Eyyyy I love the institute
If you liked this video then you might also like their video on naming intersellar empires
Antitrust laws have been eroding for a long time now though
It's an interesting video, but as someone who really likes corporatist settings I think there's a few things you ought to consider
he mentions that corporations are bad at diversifying. This is true, but that's not the only way a company can gain control over large amounts of essential goods and services. Google started as a search engine service. Now they make cars, have social networks, run the most widely used video service in the world, and more. How? Yeah they diversified a bit, but they also just straight up bought smaller businesses and just let them keep doing what they were doing before. In its most extreme case, a company would just by the executive branch of a government and just let it do what it was doing before, only now it has a stake in things like law making
Given this, I don't think a shift from a democracy to a corporatocracy would be too insane, under the right circumstances. Perhaps the government has lost political leverage over this company to raise taxes in their Senate, because companies have spent years slowly buying elections and politicians. They're too poor to do things like keep roads in working order, and the people have noticed. Say this corporation owns all the toll roads in country. The people realize that this company runs roads better than their own government, and wonder why the government doesn't just sell their roads to this company so they can spend the money on stuff they're actually good at. All of a sudden, one company now controls all the transportation in the country
I agree a corporation couldn't overthrow a government militarily but it certainly could control enough of a democracy to have it's military deployed in ways that benefit the company over anything else. Or, again, you could have a situation where perceived government incompetence pushes a voluntary surrender of military assets to this company in order for them to be better managed
a nation doesn't have to built on a strong national identity. For example, there are plenty of African nations that only exist because some white dude drew a line on a piece of paper. There are plenty of examples throughout history of nations that lose their national identity (Western Roman Empire) or change their national identity over a short period of time (Muslim conquests). Also, a corporation could (and do) certainly appeal to people's nationalistic tendencies to get people to support them. Think: redesigning the logo with national colors, PSAs that espouse nationalistic rhetoric, etc
just because a corporation works to increase it's own wealth above all else, doesn't mean an antagonist within that system can't have an interesting ideology. For example, consider a high-level employee who views his involvement his work as essential to the quality of life of this new nation, or a CEO who believes that the world becomes a better place through the wealth of his company. What about someone who started out poor under the old government and is now rich under this system? Might he believes, despite the infringements on his own rights, governments and politicians simply couldn't do the job that this company is doing now? These all seem rather interesting which is why it's what my book's about
I really like this discussion of the future relationships between government and corporation. I disagree with one of his main points that corporations are solely meant for profit, because even if they traditionally are there's been recent trends of companies pushing agendas through policy. Social media and free speech is at the brunt of this, as advertisers and tech companies demonetize or ban certain content aside from economic reasons. This could be expanded on especially if top-end corporate structures evolve to resemble both their former selves and governments.
I think one thing he failed to mention is like for example. What the if company makes it profitable enough for its soldiers to fight for the companies interest? Thats the whole point soldiers become mercenaries is because they fight for profit and not ideals.
Can the author explain how the East India Company worked so well and for so long then? EDIT: To clarify, the author made the points, in my perspective, that profit ran states are for the purposes of plausibility, impossible. The company lasted 200 years, holding sovereignty over India for up to 100. Yes it got over thrown, yes the British sovereignty in India had some Wierd puppet leadership at times, but in the right circumstances it did happen for multiple generations.
The part about going bankrupt over moving people to an island feels very hand waved, scale is a huge thing and companies do move thier locations and staff alongside. Oil Platforms house 1000 people, if it is financially viable to do something it is done.
Mining is a huge example of this, it is a forced location, it has to be on site, and then you need to process. Is it more viable to have a processing facility closer. If you have to in an area, would it make sense to have a centralised processing area. The workers have to live some where. It's how communities are built, and now die out.
If all workers live on the land, in corporate dorms, eat in the cafeteria, it's just as compact and closed doored as a cult. And we know from recent times how they grow and avoid regional government.
I don't quite get the points about modern day situations. Yes we have laws of antitrust, but who writes a mega Corp story in the current status quo?
There's the Colgate part, but that also seems kind of hand waved. We know just from advertising that there are mega corporations that are compound brands. Coca-Cola Family, Pepsi Family, Uni Lever is insanely huge and has fingers in everything consumer. Google / Alphabet is in everything, Disney now has 1/3 of Hollywood. A good brand diversifies, but isn't stupid enough to put a toothpaste brand on food. Best foods / Hellman's and Lynx / Axe is the same brand. It's both Unilever.
A corporation only controls what I needs to, it will out source if it's a waste of time developing internal solutions.
A corporate run state would function more like an self governing industry. It would still have politics, it would still have laws, including anti trust. Trade and money doesn't flow without it. No one said they have to pay a fair wage to thier serfs, but do you even have to do that when you feed, house and clothe them. Is there even serfs though, or is automation everywhere. Is it a Nation state of oligarchs and IT help desk staff.
It's a complex situation, and handwaving it away is just as bad as those that hand wave it into thier worlds.