Megacorporations

[keen320]

I recently thought about how, for a while, anyway, there seemed to be a fad to have huge, evil mega-corporations. Well, actually, now that I think of it, that still hasn't gone away...

But anyway, just how plausible are these, anyway? I'm not just talking about multinational corporations with tons of cash and some political influence simply due to their size. I'm talking taking-over-the-world corporations. From the fictional universes where they own entire countries, other planets, or the Earth itself. Just how likely would it be that a corporation or group of corporations could gain enough power to buy planets, or become Earth's primary governing body, or other seemingly inconceivable feats usually reserved for governments?

Note: These corporations usually seem to inhabit tongue in cheek (Buy-N-Large from Wall-e) or dark and gritty (usually a dystopian future) realities.

[Stark]

Most of those settings involve legal changes granting defacto or actual legal sovereignty to sufficiently large corporations. Others simply have an extension of the walled (and self-sufficent) corporate compound and corruption.

[Lord of the Abyss]

The East India Company essentially ruled India for about a century I understand. And the United Fruit Company largely dominated various South American countries for a time. The evil megacorporation taking over nations or worlds scenario seems like something of a "back to the future" idea to me.

[ShadowOfMadness]

I recently thought about how, for a while, anyway, there seemed to be a fad to have huge, evil mega-corporations. Well, actually, now that I think of it, that still hasn't gone away...

But anyway, just how plausible are these, anyway? I'm not just talking about multinational corporations with tons of cash and some political influence simply due to their size. I'm talking taking-over-the-world corporations. From the fictional universes where they own entire countries, other planets, or the Earth itself. Just how likely would it be that a corporation or group of corporations could gain enough power to buy planets, or become Earth's primary governing body, or other seemingly inconceivable feats usually reserved for governments?

Note: These corporations usually seem to inhabit tongue in cheek (Buy-N-Large from Wall-e) or dark and gritty (usually a dystopian future) realities.

I think of it this way...

Google has a net revenue of about $5 billion a year. If they devoted 20% ($1 billion) towards building a military arm. They could build a military force twice the size of about 70 countries.

From there it is pretty easy to declare your new base of operations to be that country and be a sovereign nation megacorp.

Their annual net revenue exceeds the total GDP of ~40 countries. Practically speaking, any of those 40 nations could not stop Google from invading them.

In theory.

I'd say it is quite plausible. They won't be able to invade any First World nation....but some place like Fiji?

Yes.

Of course, that pre-supposes no nation would intervene on the victim nation's behalf. But when you can throw 150% of a nation's GDP around, you can probably bribe the right people.

On a sci-fi scale where planets are more akin to states or small nations? Hell yes they could take a world over!

[Stark]

I think someone needs to look up the difference between 'gross revenue' and 'profit'.

[ShadowOfMadness]

I think someone needs to look up the difference between 'gross revenue' and 'profit'.

http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html

Are you sure?

It looks like they have about 6 billion in Net for 2009,2010 (unaudited, not counting Q4). 4 billion for 2007, 2008.

I'd call for random bullshit estimates calling it about 5 billion per year is reasonable.

Gross revenue is ~$20 billion.

[Stark]

Google has a net revenue of about $5 billion a year.

Oops? You should do research first, not afterward.

[ShadowOfMadness]

Google has a net revenue of about $5 billion a year.

Oops? You should do research first, not afterward.

I think you misunderstand the concept of:

... about $...

Here you go:
http://www.google.com/search?client=ubu ... 8&oe=utf-8

We are using the 'approximate' definition.

'random bullshit estimates'

You seem intent on picking a fight with me since you went from:

YOUR WRONG!!! HA! NEWB!

To:
Ahaha! I caught you! Its a different problem that I didn't mention the first time!

Also here is a hint (The last two full years on that table, just using the first digit):
(4+6)/2 = 5

As such, I'm not sure how this contributes to the topic so I'm going to ignore further posts from you unless you have something intelligent to say. The numbers are accurate enough for purposes of random bullshit estimates on the vague feasibility of an idea.

[Korto]

Google has a net revenue of about $5 billion a year. If they devoted 20% ($1 billion) towards building a military arm. They could build a military force twice the size of about 70 countries.

Yeah, they could... Except no they can't. Who are they buying this shit off? Tanks, missiles, attack helicopters, and all the other shit required for a real military. Stuff that soveriegn nations allow other sovereign nations to have, but are considered off-limits to anyone else. Google could try to do it secretly, I suppose. Good luck with that. I see frozen bank accounts and arrested board members in their not-so-distant future.

Of course, to take over Fiji you hardly need serious military hardware. Just hire and infiltrate mercenaries. The coup will be easy. Then frozen bank accounts, seized company equipement, board arrests, and the most interesting Annual General Meeting in history.
You need a business plan that gives a decent way this can turn a profit, or the shareholders will not be happy. Public multinational companies are there to make a profit, and in the relatively short-term.

[keen320]

I would imagine that for Google, at least, invading someone would quickly put paid to their "don't be evil" corporate philosophy. Which I think is nonsense anyway, thanks tho their helping China for a while.

The East India Company essentially ruled India for about a century I understand. And the United Fruit Company largely dominated various South American countries for a time. The evil megacorporation taking over nations or worlds scenario seems like something of a "back to the future" idea to me.

Excellent point, but they had the backing of a sovereign country, which was at that time the most powerful country around. Not to mention a large technology gap working in their favor. I would think it would now be significantly more difficult for anyone to do such a thing, particularly given how much most people distrust corporations.

[ShadowOfMadness]

I would imagine that for Google, at least, invading someone would quickly put paid to their "don't be evil" corporate philosophy. Which I think is nonsense anyway, thanks tho their helping China for a while.

I was just using them as an example since their financial condition is easy to find.

Google has a net revenue of about $5 billion a year. If they devoted 20% ($1 billion) towards building a military arm. They could build a military force twice the size of about 70 countries.

Yeah, they could... Except no they can't. Who are they buying this shit off? Tanks, missiles, attack helicopters, and all the other shit required for a real military. Stuff that soveriegn nations allow other sovereign nations to have, but are considered off-limits to anyone else. Google could try to do it secretly, I suppose. Good luck with that. I see frozen bank accounts and arrested board members in their not-so-distant future.

The same folks that arm and equip PMCs. We aren't talking about invading a nation of significant military capability. We are talking about invading a smaller nation with dated weaponry, minimal armor and air support (if any) which can be overpowered by helicopters and infantry-carried weaponry.

But for the sake of argument, lets say our theoretically would-be megacorp has to toss in an extra $4 billion or so in bribes to get its operations to a location that would avoid them being seized. Their bank accounts in neutral countries. Their physical hardware in the same. They could still do it with the profit for one year. :/

I'm not saying this is a perfect scenario. I'm just saying it is plausible enough to justify megacorp(s) can exist under the right set of circumstances.

Of course, to take over Fiji you hardly need serious military hardware. Just hire and infiltrate mercenaries. The coup will be easy. Then frozen bank accounts, seized company equipement, board arrests, and the most interesting Annual General Meeting in history.
You need a business plan that gives a decent way this can turn a profit, or the shareholders will not be happy. Public multinational companies are there to make a profit, and in the relatively short-term.

That is kinda the point.....you don't need more than enough mercenaries to overpower the military and peacekeeping apparatus on Fiji. That should be easy enough with a billion dollars.

I never said it was practical. I simply said it was theoretically plausible. Which, honestly, should be all that is really needed to justify a megacorp exists since the motivation and practicality can be toyed with a bit to make it work. The general magnitude of such activities (e.g. A megacorp having the $$ on hand) would be harder to get someone to suspend their disbelief for.

[sirocco]

Just a question: Would a megacorp only tactic be military conquest?

Isn't it more simple to financially control the whole country by

1- providing nearly everything it may need and
2- getting in return whatever natural resources and riches it produces?

[Zixinus]

I am surprised no one N&P didn't start talking about how the USA is already a plutocracy controlled by megacorporations grown effectively uncontrollable and untouchable by gaining such tremendus power that the Founding Fathers couldn't foresee. Or something like that.

The idea of Google (even theoretically) taking over Fiji isn't nonsense because of the money or logistics of them getting the right materials/people/equipment/condoms. It's nonsense because Google doesn't need to. They simply would just have to buy every mayor business in Fiji. Soon enough, as the governments see that their GPD depends on the goodwill of the corporations (unless they have good laws preventing Google fucking them over) they'll start bending over for Google (or any other megacorp) soon enough. Then they'll just buy all the land they can, thus gaining effective control over Fiji: they control the government, they control the people because the people get their money from them and they control the land because they own all the land. Controlling the media is just a matter of buying local newspaper/TV agencies. They can organize national goat-fucking days and nobody would really have the power to say no.

That's just an extreme case. I wouldn't be surprised if you could do it with less money and more strategy. Point is, that these corps sheer amount of money can manipulate politicians, manipulate the media (see Fox News) and so on.

They're prevalent in sci-fi I think because they're real and apparently malicious threat (after all, they are all about greed, no?). People see corporations being as powerful as governments in the issue of who gets what they want.

I wouldn't be surprised that the American view of corporations, of what corporations do and what they can do also enters it. Europeans have a very different view of what corporations are than what Americans have.

[Serafina]

Note that all historic megacorporations, especially those with near-government like power, had SOMETHING vital they had near-total control over.
If you take the East-India Company as an example, they had control over the trade with a vital part of the British Empire. That gave them a lot of political leverage, influence etc. - it's about more than just money.

Such extreme monopolies are rare these days. An oil company might control a vital strategic resource, but it also has competetiors. That severely changes the amount of political leverage it has - while it still has a lot of it, it can't use it in any way it wants.

BTW, Google is a shitty example for a megacorporation. They are a provide for information (which is vital), but they can only control it to a limited extent. Not only do they have competitiors, but there are also many other channels for information. Google certainly has a lot of power, but they couldn't use it for such extreme endeavours.

What i am trying to say is that it's not the money that makes a megacorporation a megacorporation (in the sci-fi sense), it's political power and influence.
You can see that in good fiction that involves megacorporations - they will have gained a massive raise in poltical power somehow. Often, that involves a limited breakdown of society (often global) where the corporation can step in with lot's of money and assets and where it can stop the breakdown of said society.
That gives them a lot of political influence, which they use to change the law to give them politcal power after said influence has worn of. (Partial) extraterritoriality is often one of these changes, putting the corporation outside of the laws of said nation. Laws that ensure their monopoly are a more realistic change - getting absolute monopoly over water, electrictiy or anything like that makes a corporation very powerful.

To get to a real sci-fi megacorporation, a corporation needs to acquire so much political power that it becomes a nations equal, or takes control of a nation. That would require a weak government in said nation and/or the removal of the monopoly of force from said nation - as well as the rest of the world to not intervene.

[andrewgpaul]

In a libarc thread earlier this week, we were discussing families on starships and something struck me as a possible seed for a kind of megacorp: if a baby is born on the ship, of which country is he or she a citizen? With a lot of countries, citizenship is granted by being on their property when born (which includes some ships) or by having parent citizens, but not all countries do that.

If this baby didn't have a home country, the parents might turn to the company for help: does your insurance policy cover my children, etc. If yes, the company's family plan (and the parent's private assets) is the only thing that provides for these people. This might make de facto company citizens - the first step on their eventual expansion into the classic megacorp situation.

What would happen if that were to occur now, on a liner at sea?

[Swindle1984]

Google has a net revenue of about $5 billion a year. If they devoted 20% ($1 billion) towards building a military arm. They could build a military force twice the size of about 70 countries.

Yeah, they could... Except no they can't. Who are they buying this shit off? Tanks, missiles, attack helicopters, and all the other shit required for a real military. Stuff that soveriegn nations allow other sovereign nations to have, but are considered off-limits to anyone else. Google could try to do it secretly, I suppose. Good luck with that. I see frozen bank accounts and arrested board members in their not-so-distant future.

Of course, to take over Fiji you hardly need serious military hardware. Just hire and infiltrate mercenaries. The coup will be easy. Then frozen bank accounts, seized company equipement, board arrests, and the most interesting Annual General Meeting in history.
You need a business plan that gives a decent way this can turn a profit, or the shareholders will not be happy. Public multinational companies are there to make a profit, and in the relatively short-term.

I can buy a Czech T-72 tank with the gun breech welded shut for $100,000. Mercenaries manage to buy automatic weapons and RPG's pretty easily and can even have them in some countries where ordinary citizens are forbidden to own them. You can buy former military fighter jets and helicopters too.

I think Google can afford some of that shit, or better. Especially if, in their plan to take over a country, they don't mind doing things illegally.

[Archaic`]

What would happen if that were to occur now, on a liner at sea?

I would've assumed that it'd operated under the same kind of principle as an embassy does, namely that for the purposes of the birth, it'd be considered the territory of the country it is registered in and whose flag it flies.

[PainRack]

Don't most of these fictional megacorporations gain political power because they financed their own private army to secure their facilities? It would seem that for such megaocorps to arise, one actually needs a weak, anarchist society that threatens them.

The closest I can think of to the contary is Robocop OCPC.... and even that's set in a run-down Detroit where the city government is powerless against rising crime.

[Archaic`]

IIRC, the megacorps in the Shadowrun setting got their extraterritoriality and right to protect themselves with military force following two major court decisions, though I don't think it was their private armies which gave them their political clout, they already essentially had it. The timeline's changed in the latest edition I think, but the events should still be basically the same. The first was a foot riot in New York (from a 3 week truckers strike) attacking a truck carrying infectious medical wastes. The guards defended with deadly force, killing hundreds of rioters, but the courts ruled in their favour on the basis that their actions saved many more thousands of people. The second was a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant by a radical environmentalist organisation.

[The Dark]

IIRC, the megacorps in the Shadowrun setting got their extraterritoriality and right to protect themselves with military force following two major court decisions, though I don't think it was their private armies which gave them their political clout, they already essentially had it. The timeline's changed in the latest edition I think, but the events should still be basically the same. The first was a foot riot in New York (from a 3 week truckers strike) attacking a truck carrying infectious medical wastes. The guards defended with deadly force, killing hundreds of rioters, but the courts ruled in their favour on the basis that their actions saved many more thousands of people. The second was a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant by a radical environmentalist organisation.

Yeah, pretty much. The first event was the Seretech case, where their hired security defended a convoy, killing two hundred rioters with twenty casualties among their employees. They were sued for criminal negligence, and the SCOTUS determined that corps had a right to maintain a private army. The second was the Shiawase nuclear facility, which involved two court cases. The first allowed them to build their own nuclear reactor with limited oversight under the NRC. The second came after an assault that penetrated their security but failed. The NRC claimed the attack showed an inability to defend the reactor. Shiawase claimed their ability to defend the reactor was limited by federal laws restricting their military's ability. The SCOTUS found in favor of Shiawase. This somehow was considered to put them on a level with governments with regard to rights and responsibilities within the US (I don't have all the old books, and the information I have is somewhat vague on this), and the megacorps began sanctioning trade to countries that didn't follow the US's lead on extraterritoriality.

[Korto]

The same folks that arm and equip PMCs. We aren't talking about invading a nation of significant military capability. We are talking about invading a smaller nation with dated weaponry, minimal armor and air support (if any) which can be overpowered by helicopters and infantry-carried weaponry.

but to go back to the OP...

But anyway, just how plausible are these, anyway? I'm not just talking about multinational corporations with tons of cash and some political influence simply due to their size. I'm talking taking-over-the-world corporations. From the fictional universes where they own entire countries, other planets, or the Earth itself. Just how likely would it be that a corporation or group of corporations could gain enough power to buy planets, or become Earth's primary governing body, or other seemingly inconceivable feats usually reserved for governments?

And to me, taking over Fiji just doesn't rate. Anyone with more money than sense could probably take over Fiji, so I was looking at it as a "stepping stone". But if that multinational did militarily take over Fiji (although militarily is probably the last way they would do it), what then? Other, "real", countries don't tend to like that behavior much (unless it's within the country's interests for some reason).

But for the sake of argument, lets say our theoretically would-be megacorp has to toss in an extra $4 billion or so in bribes to get its operations to a location that would avoid them being seized. Their bank accounts in neutral countries. Their physical hardware in the same. They could still do it with the profit for one year. :/

OK, their bank accounts have been shifted to safe harbour, all their production as well (assuming that's possible). I assume they also have no plans to do any business whatsoever with the entire of the Western world?
Can you come up with a business plan for this that will pass the Investment companies? Those 401K people are probably a wee bit more conservative than that.

It'll be easier with a private company, not public. Public companies always have to explain what they're doing, they have boards installed by vote of a bunch of outsiders, and a whole lot of rules and regulations. A private company can keep things secret and be run by a lone nutcase.

And I still believe that to take over what (for the sake of being deregatory to Fiji and all similar one-donkey (can't afford a horse) states) I will term "real" nations, you will need more than some out-dated armour and a few assault rifles. You need good shit that I honestly don't believe they will sell at any price, and if you try to get enough of it to be worthwile on the black market, someone will notice.

[FedRebel]

I think of it this way...

Google has...[/snip]

Why pick on Google? Wal-mart is like the ~22nd largest economy in the world and is the poster child for 'evil' companies (atleast in the retail sector)

If we use Wal-Mart...

Step 1: Start selling military surplus and law enforcement gear in SuperCenters and stand alone "WAL-MART QM's (Quartermaster)" stores

Step 2: Introduce Wal-Mart brand military/police gear

Step 3: Establish a Wal-Mart brand security force called WAL-SEC, which will provide basic rent-a-cop services, armored transport and home security services will follow on later

Step 4: With experience gained from WAL-SEC, Wal-mart establishes a PMC division under the name of WAL-DEF

Step 5: God help any country that crosses Wal-Mart

[ShadowOfMadness]

I think yall are missing the point of my post...

It is to say, in theory, someone there are corporations out there who could take over a country if they lost their minds and wanted megacorp-style status. :/

[Ford Prefect]

Don't most of these fictional megacorporations gain political power because they financed their own private army to secure their facilities? It would seem that for such megaocorps to arise, one actually needs a weak, anarchist society that threatens them.

Uh, no, most of the time it's never clear how a large corporation secures such immense power. Unless otherwise stated I'd probably just infer that it's an extension of current political corruption and influence, ie. goons with shitloads of cash getting more involved in politics behind the scenes. About the only megacorporation I can think of which essentially secured its position by force is the Shin-Ra Electric Company, but that's only in regards to the Wutai War - they probably ended up top dog due to their monopoly on Mako power.

[Chaotic Neutral]

Step 4: With experience gained from WAL-SEC, Wal-mart establishes a PMC division under the name of WAL-DEF

Step 5: God help any country that crosses Wal-Mart

WA-22 Cheetah Stealth Fighter

WM-8 Modular Rifle

W-54 Tactical Nuclear Weapon, created in conjunction with McDonald's Defense to be fired from the Ronald McDonaldd recoiless rifle.

This idea demands a story to be written.

And while we are on the subject, how difficult would it be for start-up companies in these areas? (Weaponry and planes)