Will my Corporate State work?

[Mithras]

Bored of the usual 'interstellar federations' I've been trying to make an interstellar corporate cartel work. What do you think? I want it playable and fun, and a nod to realism will certainly not go amiss ...

A heavily industrialized world is capital of an interstellar state of 25 worlds. The 2 dozen huge corporations on this multi-billion population planet set up a council with representatives and work together. The council hands out licences to govern/exploit the colony worlds. Sometimes the council will revoke a licence and a megacorp will have to up and leave, to be replaced by another megacorp.

I see it working a bit like the House system in Dune, with this council standing in as the Landsraad. House Atreides becomes Honda, or something similar, House Harkonnen becomes Samsung etc.

But would this work on this kind of scale?

Soren's World is type 9 impersonal bureacracy, when Samsung arrives it tries to increase profits, perhaps set up new projects with its own money, etc. What role does the government play? Or should Samsung be the de facto government? Using the Traveller rules, could the impersonal bureacracy describe the way Samsung interacts with the citizens of Soren's World? Honda may have the licence for Pandora, a type 4 representative democracy, where the citizens are able to nominate representatives to sit in on the Pandora/Honda Board of Directors.

I envisage perhaps 100 high level staff arriving on a world when the licence is taken up, along with 1000 mid level staff and 5-10,000 low level staff (security, catering, drivers, maintenance, drillers, engineers, technicians etc, all versed in the megacorps ethos and ways).

What happens when the megacorp loses its license? If it set up a new mineral extraction facility and distribution business, does it sell it back to the planetary government, does it float it on the market and take the profits, or does it sell what it can, strip out every asset and piece of production hardware, put it on the starships and jump out of system with everything else it owns?

I think its an idea that'll give the setting a bit of flavour, but I still want to retain the Traveller feel and the Traveller world UWPs.

Is it do-able...?
[also posted at RPG.Net]

 

[aramis]

It's well within verisimilitude, for me, Paul.

Whether it would actually work, well....

... you don't have enough data for that analysis in detail.

 

[RandyB]

Bored of the usual 'interstellar federations' I've been trying to make an interstellar corporate cartel work. What do you think? I want it playable and fun, and a nod to realism will certainly not go amiss ...

A heavily industrialized world is capital of an interstellar state of 25 worlds. The 2 dozen huge corporations on this multi-billion population planet set up a council with representatives and work together. The council hands out licences to govern/exploit the colony worlds. Sometimes the council will revoke a licence and a megacorp will have to up and leave, to be replaced by another megacorp.

I see it working a bit like the House system in Dune, with this council standing in as the Landsraad. House Atreides becomes Honda, or something similar, House Harkonnen becomes Samsung etc.

But would this work on this kind of scale?

Soren's World is type 9 impersonal bureacracy, when Samsung arrives it tries to increase profits, perhaps set up new projects with its own money, etc. What role does the government play? Or should Samsung be the de facto government? Using the Traveller rules, could the impersonal bureacracy describe the way Samsung interacts with the citizens of Soren's World? Honda may have the licence for Pandora, a type 4 representative democracy, where the citizens are able to nominate representatives to sit in on the Pandora/Honda Board of Directors.

I envisage perhaps 100 high level staff arriving on a world when the licence is taken up, along with 1000 mid level staff and 5-10,000 low level staff (security, catering, drivers, maintenance, drillers, engineers, technicians etc, all versed in the megacorps ethos and ways).

What happens when the megacorp loses its license? If it set up a new mineral extraction facility and distribution business, does it sell it back to the planetary government, does it float it on the market and take the profits, or does it sell what it can, strip out every asset and piece of production hardware, put it on the starships and jump out of system with everything else it owns?

I think its an idea that'll give the setting a bit of flavour, but I still want to retain the Traveller feel and the Traveller world UWPs.

Is it do-able...?
[also posted at RPG.Net]

If you can find a copy, there's an old supplement for GURPS called Terradyne, which is about a nascent megacorp in a solar sci-fi setting. The eponymous corp is a de facto corporate state on both Luna and Mars, with travel times in the solar system comparable to (sometimes longer than) interstellar travel times in Traveller.

 

[Icosahedron]

If a licence is revoked, where do the corps up and leave to?
I can't see a powerful corporation relinquishing all of its invested resources, equipment, trained personnel, etc etc on a planet without a fight, and in the realms of Megacorps, a fight could include armed conflict.

I can't see any government apart from type 1 or 6 being the result of a corporation. Any other government would be independent of the company, at least nominally, though it could easily be in the company's pocket.

Can you think of a situation on Earth today in which companies work together in this way?

 

[saundby]

It sounds like something that could work in-game. You'll want to figure out some things about each corporation and how they interact with others.

Do they supply or produce everything for the people on those worlds or do they tend to hire services? Which ones? E.g. is there a company canteen or do they license outside catering or do they allow an open market on food?

Are their employees relatively free or are they slaves in all but name? Can they leave the company, form personal businesses while with the company, or own personal property on company planets?

Does the company work well with other companies? Or are they of a "business is war" mind-set?

You may want to have some level of organization above the companies. Anything from a super-government that enforces very basic rules agreed to by the majority of the major corps when it was formed, to a number of industry groups that act as informal means of managing interests among companies with similar, perhaps conflicting interests. There may be some independent commercial court system. If the cost of combat and combat preparation is perceived as high, it's likely that some form of court or arbitration system will be preferred in almost all conflicts.

The financial network will need to be thought out in terms of its power centers and the strong ties within the network. Who has what interests where? How will that play out?

Anyway, I think it could work well and make for a very interesting game.

 

[Mithras]

If a licence is revoked, where do the corps up and leave to?I can't see a powerful corporation relinquishing all of its invested resources, equipment, trained personnel, etc etc on a planet without a fight, and in the realms of Megacorps, a fight could include armed conflict.

As in Dune, I would imagine that fiefs or licences are swapped out. One corp gets demoted one promoted, but very rarely. And I think it might trigger warfare too, but since the corps have their own fleets, why not? That would make a great story arc.

I can't see any government apart from type 1 or 6 being the result of a corporation. Any other government would be independent of the company, at least nominally, though it could easily be in the company's pocket.

Yes, I think after reading these suggestions, the planetary governments should be just that, with off-world megacorps controlling off-world trade, interests, the starport etc. Kow-towing to the almighty power of the new masters.

 

[Mithras]

Do they supply or produce everything for the people on those worlds or do they tend to hire services? Which ones? E.g. is there a company canteen or do they license outside catering or do they allow an open market on food?

Good question ... I can't think of any analogies. What about a military unit today going on peacekeeping missions in Bosnia etc. I think we can assume secure accomodation is already in place, but the megacorp will take its own caterers, security, transport, mechanics and technicians, its own engineers, laundry services, medical staff, schooling, communications people and comms gear. It will bring in its own office staff and equipment.

It will hire some services from the subject world, commissaries selling goods within the secure compounds, perhaps additional laundry and clothing services, food supplies, and help in setting up new projects.

Are their employees relatively free or are they slaves in all but name? Can they leave the company, form personal businesses while with the company, or own personal property on company planets?

I would think the megacorps are the premier hirers and that local folks would be queing up to join their ranks. Good wages, good accomodation, vacation, offworld travel. Perhaps they can form their own businesses while on planet, as long as it sits within the umbrella of the megacorps, and it takes a cut, but allows some resources to be used.

Does the company work well with other companies? Or are they of a "business is war" mind-set?

Cyberpunk style conflict - most of the time!

You may want to have some level of organization above the companies. ... it's likely that some form of court or arbitration system will be preferred in almost all conflicts.

Here I'm going to swipe the High Council of the Landsraad from Dune almost verbatim, as that's the role it serves in mediating between quarrelling and even warring Great Houses.

 

[Major B]

I would think the megacorps are the premier hirers and that local folks would be queing up to join their ranks. Good wages, good accomodation, vacation, offworld travel. Perhaps they can form their own businesses while on planet, as long as it sits within the umbrella of the megacorps, and it takes a cut, but allows some resources to be used.

There is a good detail that could work into the story. When one company loses a contract and another moves in, the new company may want to hire over a sizable chunk of the skilled employees left stranded or may want to start over fresh. The first option opens an avenue for the competition to infiltrate operators for sabotage or just intelligence-gathering. The second option runs only a smaller rather than nonexistant risk and compounds problems by having to train up inexperienced employees.

 

[HG_B]

Yes, I think after reading these suggestions, the planetary governments should be just that, with off-world megacorps controlling off-world trade, interests, the starport etc. Kow-towing to the almighty power of the new masters.

Think of the Dutch & British company controlled colonies before the gov came in and "messed things up".

 

[Selandia]

options

Pocket Empire may give you ideas

I have two such worlds

One is a non charismatic Dictatorial puppet of corporate interest (Fiorine/268). The second (Noctotol/268) is a representative democracy where only tax payer may vote, more taxes more votes... and corporations found a way to pay 92% of the taxes creating a oligopole.

There are some basic corporate and economic rules at play in your questions:

The most fundamental: the fact that one could be dispossessed of its investments without compensation would hinder investment. Various devices exist to solve the problem.

Remember first that there is difference between the share of a corporation and the working asset of the corporation, buying the share is not like buying the asset.

Idem, You can be the beneficiary owner of the asset, you can rent it to use it, you can manage it for the operator (that could be the leasee or the owner...)... you can supply the labour or material needed to make it work... There are many ways to involve the private sector in a business.

Also, when a government want to take over the asset of the corporation or the interests of shareholders, it is usually done through expropriation, and (usually) payment to the expropriated. Corporate governing body (the corp own the asset) would call in a forced sale of shares (the corp status would allows it).

It could take the form of a general partnership, with the election of the general partner taking place every 4 years on the second tuesday of November (with power defined in the charter of the partnership or contractual documents annexed) creating an Oligarchic government. Instead of managing my ZEN Mercantile Holding Ltd Pty. Hugo Zumwalt would manage the United Stars of Antares.

However, an emphyteotic type lease on the planets to be colonized is another path: style: "it is leased to you, real cheap my friend (or under conditions as varied as what please the leasor), for 99 years (or 20 or 50...whatever is needed to amortize the investment...), and the ownership of everything built on it is revert to us at the end of the lease!" No complaint or final payment, everything related to the end of the deal was factored in the deal from the start. The autority then auction the lot for the next 20-50-99 years.

At the other end of the scale: school cafeterias provide an example of the government offering its ressources on bareboat charter. The school board own the building, the table, the frig and stove...the caterer operate it, provide the people and the working material... 5 years contracts under those conditions....

There are endless options. The Fief systems offer a whole world of historical reference. The whole emergence of the Feodalo absolutist system, from a King claiming personnal ownership, to king forced to give hereditary fief as a Primus Inter Parem to the absolute reign of Louis XIV ("l'État c'est moi"/I am the state). Would your General partnership on its way to Feodalize itself? Nice plot line: lets revoke the Magna Carta, I mean the corporate status...!

Time to go

Selandia

 

[epicenter00]

I think a corporate state could work, and it could be quite interesting. Obviously, if you're the GM, once you get the logical framework to function, most players aren't going to look too closely at how it actually works beyond that so you can get away with structures and organizations that wouldn't "really" work. I may also be biased because I have a few nations that work on the corporate idea.

For instance, one of my nations is an examination of what if the idea of corporate citizenship returns? In the bitter years of being alone in the wilderness, the corporation grows beyond just a place to work and becomes an identity of its own. This eventually becomes codified within the corporation as social ranks. That is, there's a huge difference between "employees", "contractors", and "dependents."

Employees - Not much to be said. These people are the actual card-carrying members of the corporation. Benefits: You're part of the company so the company looks out for you. Many jobs in the company can only be held by employees. You also have lifetime employment. Depending on your pay grade, you're given a place to live, education, insurance, benefits, and so on. The rules governing your safety and productivity are very stringent. Even if the company is in dire straights, you can be sure you will always be looked after - you'll never be left behind due to neglect (you may be asked to sacrifice for the company, but you can be sure that your family will be honored, your kids will have preferential treatment in education and positions, etc.). While all employees have to spend some time in entry-level positions to understand their jobs, most employees will be found in middle and upper management positions or in positions where they don't lead anyone but have to self-regulate. Responsibilities: You can't ever leave the company really. The company controls you in many ways - if you're not productive, be ready for psycho-chemical reconditioning to adjust your attitude, your kids are educated in schools depending on their aptitudes, you're expected to mold your opinions your attitudes to those acceptable by the company (or you're expected to keep quiet), and there's constant competition to reach the top slots that only a few employees will ever actually reach.

Contractors - These are sort of vassals in a sense or long-term business partners. The corporation has a certain trust for you, and you've worked a long supporting the corporation, but you're not really a part of it. There's a lot more opportunity for massive realignments in your life (both voluntary and involuntary). If you do well, really well, for a long time, and show loyalty to the company there's a (slim) chance that the company will buy you out, and you and your hires will be offered a chance to become full employees. Benefits: Freedom. When a company hires contractors, they give the contractors a fixed sum of money (via negotiation and bidding) to do a task. Contracts tend to be longer term - usually measured in years. Otherwise, how you do a task is up to you. If you do your job well, the company will keep contracting to you. You can gain various benefits extended to employees by paying the company a sum of money to subscribe to them (like fire, medical, police, sewage, and so on). If the company pulls up stakes on a world to go somewhere else, or if you're not needed anymore, chances are the company will provide you a budget to relocate with them or go somewhere that you are needed. Downside: Insecurity. You're subject to renewal. If you don't do your job well or someone else comes along who's better and cheaper, you can expect your contract to be in trouble - while the company prefers to work with people they know the bottom line is still the bottom line. The company pays you a fixed amount to do things. If you screw up during negotiation and find that's not enough, that's tough for you. If you really fall flat on your face and you're doing something critical expect indentured servitude and psycho-chemical conditioning to ensure you and your people fulfill your contract. In fact, company negotiators are infamously savvy, and try very deliberately to screw over new contractors like this. Think of it as an intelligence test.

Dependents - The bottom of the social ladder. These people are zeroes. The corporation and its contractors depend on this pool of people, but they're ultimately considered expendable. Typical Traveller players will probably be in this pool, as would be migrant worker types, mercenaries, day laborers, and the typical "camp follower" types. Benefit: Total freedom. You can come and go as you please for the most part. Your pay is completely your own, as are the hours you work. Humans being social animals, these people show up on any world that the corporation has extensive facilities on. Contractors and Dependents can provide certain benefits if you pay them. Downside: No job security. Dependents are usually hired on a day-by-day basis and for dirty, menial, or deniable tasks. Nobody cares about you. The company and its contractors don't hire people of this class they can't do without. If the company is working on an uninhabitable world and decides (or is forced) to leave, you're going to be left behind to die unless you have a berth on a ship (or own a ship). In times of crisis the dependents are going to be thrown out of the company compound first. If you cause trouble, corporate security has a "shoot first and don't bother asking questions" attitude towards you.

Good question ... I can't think of any analogies. What about a military unit today going on peacekeeping missions in Bosnia etc. I think we can assume secure accomodation is already in place, but the megacorp will take its own caterers, security, transport, mechanics and technicians, its own engineers, laundry services, medical staff, schooling, communications people and comms gear. It will bring in its own office staff and equipment.

It's a big controversy in the United States right now. We're hiring outside contractors left and right to do stuff for the troops.

In this case, I'm talking about purely non-armed support services contractors - the people who could more properly be thought of as mercenaries are a bit of a hot potato topic for this board so I'm going to leave that be.

Anyway, it began with the idea that contractors are cheaper overall than using military people to do it and the military can claim to be slimming budgets. However, there's been a lot of questioning of the actual benefit of contractors to run things like the canteen and thousand other things that troops on deployment need. There's evidence that, no, these people aren't cheaper than using military people.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Ryder Hook by IIRC Kenneth Bulmer had a "corporate" environment on an interstellar level. Basically your social status depended on

+ Wether you where belonging to a company at all
+ Size of your company
+ Your job within the company

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

Think of the Dutch & British company controlled colonies before the gov came in and "messed things up".

Just what I was thinking...

Just sort of scanned through the thread, but a question comes to mind:

*Is there no formal government as we would recognize one, a govt in name only with corporate pulling strings behind the scenes, or a true corporate oligarchy? Depending on how far your corporate state is from other political entities, any of the three would work.

IMTU the new 'G-space' technology is so cheap, almost any large corporation could build their own fleet. Think 'Aliens' with corporate security instead of Marines. Board disputes settled at the point of a gun (or nuke).

*How stable is the situation between parties? Is the central authority just a boardroom that can only issue edicts, or do they have independent troops that can restore order and/or break things? How prone are they to secret deals, infighting and power politics? Do any neighbors care about the situation, and are they acting to increase instability?

IMTU Terra is so happy to get rid of malcontents that it takes years for them to slowly re-establish central control. My ConFederation is not a heavy handed Imperium, but just. at first, a loose association of states that agree to abide by a gradually developing body of interstellar law.

*What is their policy towards a major invasion by a hostile empire? Is there a draft, militia or mercenaries available? Would any troops be responding on a feudal type mutual assistance basis?

IMTU there was eventually a military coup followed by universal draft and hard core consolidation, merchant guilds are severely restricted.

Hopefully I didn't prattle on too much, and I gave you something to think about!

 

[PDXWiz]

The Dutch East India Company, and the Hudson's Bay Company would be extremely good role models for your corporate state.

You might want to explore things like company mining, logging, and lumber mill towns. I remember an episode of Airwolf that would make an awesome Traveller scenario: They had to go to a company mining town. While there, a volcano went off like Mt. St. Helens with a big ashfall, clogging the chopper's vents. Translate the Airwolf chopper into a 200ton streamlined Free Trader, and there ya go!

You'd also have some similarities to the various government research bases in Antarctica, especially McMurdo Sound. I have a friend who is one of my library patrons who spent about three winters down there as a chef. He was hired as contract staff.

Another topic of exploration: look at the Colonial history of the Americas. In a number of cases, the colony was formed as a royal charter with a group of businesspeople running the colony and hiring or otherwise encouraging potential colonists to come to the Americas. Not quite sure how this worked for everyone, but definitely worth exploring in the case of the British and Dutch colonies.

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, there was a lot of emphasis on commerce due to the starring role of the Ferengi named Quark. His cousin reportedly owned a moon he'd bought from his transactions (a distant echo of a TOS reference to being rich enough to buy a whole planet). Overall, the Ferengi business arrangements were overseen by the Ferengi Commerce Authority.

Star Wars had both the Trade Federation and the Corporate Sector which might give you some more ideas.

Good luck with this project, it sounds really really cool! Worthy of novelization treatment as well.

Gordon Long

 

[Blue Ghost]

A good example is the East Indian Tea Company in the 1800s.

 

[Selandia]

examples

A more modern experiment than the East india co is the "État indépendant du Congo" when from 18850-1908 what is today known as RDC was a private colony of the belgian King Léopold II (transfered to the belgian state in 1908).

Selandia

 

[Blue Ghost]

Very very brutal and bloody affair, if my history recalls correctly.

 

[Agemegos]

Very very brutal and bloody affair, if my history recalls correctly.

The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State. ... The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber... They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace... the people who were demanded for the forced labour gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected.​

Forbath, Peter (1977). The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic Rivers.​

It is impossible to be sure how severely the Congo Free State devastated its domains, because there was no census taken at the beginning. The more sober modern estimates are that they depopulated the place to the extent of a a 20% fall in population in 23 years. Other estimates range to 50%, or even over 70%.

In all the annals of colonial rule, which are generally pretty ghastly, rule of the Congo by the [Belgian-owned] Congo Free State is surely the ghastliest.

 

[whartung]

I'm curious if there is any higher authority above the corporations involved.

Clearly, in the past, corporations had a wide range of authority but inevitably they answered to their countries laws. Whether there was some official mechanism for grievances against the corporation, vs basic criminal law I don't know.

As time moved forward, more and more laws affected industry. So, while there were company towns et al, they weren't quite like, say, the military in terms of the technical control they had over their employees. (Actual control, via say intimidation or corruption, is a different story).

And obviously, when in remote, hazardous areas, for long terms, the company perhaps has greater latitude, like a ships captain at sea. Or, you end up with something like an Outland situation, where maybe the company is required to bring along representatives of the higher authority.

Another example is enforcement of company laws within the company. Is there some kind of "checks and balances" to simply enforce the company policies, notably for things like seniority, share distribution, etc. beyond "talking to the old man". If a lowly worked is getting docked pay "unfairly", who can he ultimately file a grievance with, and is there any expectation of it being listened to.

For us, there are corporate policies and chains of command, ruled by HR departments and finally overseen and working under the umbrella of local, state, and federal labor laws, and even union rules.

So, I'm just curious how this aspect is handled. What keeps the company rule from becoming (if anything) a basic dictatorship.

 

[Selandia]

If you speak about a corporate state, I believe that you will refer to a state where all the attribute of the state are "de facto" held by the corporation or corporations, including diplomacy, defense and justice, even if "de jure" they may be held by puppet rulers.

Answering to a sovereign power (as individual subjects and as a body incorporated by its law) is what makes the difference between new England or new France colonies for the periods that they were were privately held and the Congo free state, where there were no check to greed.

Selandia