How would an "Incorporated" nation work?

[Crossroads Inc.]

For anyone who ever played SDN-World with me knows I play a nation called the "Incorporated Nation of Crossroadia"
Now initially the whole 'incorporated' part was a bit of a joke, a play off of my bored name. But as the game became more detailed and serious, I had to consider how the concept I put down would work. An nation that is run as a corporation.

Ironically, in the version I laid it it quickly turned socialistic, with the State owning virtually all major industries, running them as aspects of the National Coporation, where instead of taxes, a cut of the profits goto the government (essentially the same thing as taxes). Citizens could get loans from the government to start up business on their own, but would be held to pay back 'profits' to the government as their company would be seen as a franchise.

But these were just my own wild ideas, in reality, I have to wonder if ANY nation has actually tried to be run as a business, or how such an 'Incorporated' nation would work?

[Zed]

"Incorporated" is an adjective that means that the entity is a corporation. A corporation is an entity that has a distinct legal personality and privileges and liabilities distinct from those of the entity's members. The Catholic Church is a corporation. It also happens to run a nation. Your scenario isn't so hypothetical as you make it seem.

There's also little reason for nations to be incorporated, except in special cases like that of the Church. Corporation provides a number of legal rights in a particular system of law. Nations can set up systems of law that already grant the state substantial rights, without having to first create a corporation.

[Crossroads Inc.]

So how the whole "corporation" aspect is a bit redundant then? I guess the next question then, is how would a government work if it ran more like a business? Is there a single government in the world that doesn't run a deficit or turns a profit? Would you need to even runs things a certain way to do so?

[Akhlut]

Well, there's a lot to consider, first off.

1: How does the leadership of the nation work, from municipal to federal level? Are leaders elected, appointed by committee, promoted from lesser ranks, nepotism, or some other method?

2: How much control do those leaders exert? Is President CEO beholden to national shareholders who want him to turn a quarterly profit and s/he will be thrown out and replaced if s/he fails? Is the National Board a bunch of unelected guys in a boardroom who can't be thrown out?

3: How is the government separated? Does the CEO/Board make all decisions or delegate all decisions? Are there different branches of government that act as a check and balance system?

4: Who decides the government's direction? Shareholders, CEO, labor, or who?

And so on. There are just too many variables to contend with to say for certain, as a nation run as a strongly unionized factory is going to be very different from one run as a financial institute like Goldman-Sachs.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Well I'm at work right now so I'll have to wait till I get home before formulatign a proper response. But basically what I had in mind was close to a parliamentary system with people elected to spots on a bored of representatives and a President who is elected by the bored.

The problem is while what I have in mind 'now' is rather normal, I will have to consider how a group of colonies would GET to that state from where they start.

[PainRack]

So how the whole "corporation" aspect is a bit redundant then? I guess the next question then, is how would a government work if it ran more like a business? Is there a single government in the world that doesn't run a deficit or turns a profit? Would you need to even runs things a certain way to do so?

The EIC and government run industries like the NHS or public transport are probably your best look. There's also soverign wealth funds.

Personally, here's a real life ancedote from sillypore. Our transport industries are government linked corporations, in other words, they're both government run businesses. So, to promote "competition", the government decided to direct both companies to "intergrate", so that SMRT, which runs the train will merge with another bus company and then now own taxis, buses and a train. Ditto to SBS, which will now run its own fleet of taxies, its existing buses and a train.

By having competition, this would provide better service, keep prices lower(in the long run) and blah blah blah, free market is doubleplus good!
Now, the train lines in Singapore are built by the government and then sold to the train companies. So, the newly intergrated transport companies need to buy the new train line so as to achieve the capability to offer a fully intergrated transport network(insert corporate blather about how you can get off bus and swing to train seamlessly). Now, this is already nonsense of course, the government owned body CONTROLS the transportation. You want cashless transport? Zing. Done. Directed by the government, all companies has to follow and adopt the Ez-link card. Prices are.... nominated by a transport committee, comprising of civil servants and other members of the public(read, corporate servants).

A secret bid is submitted and lol and behold, SBS won the bid to operate the new NEL.

Whoopee doo........... then problems come in.
1. Prices need to raise on the new train line because of capital costs, operating costs and etc. So, they petition the body to raise prices. Goes through successfully, even though members of the public complained that competition was supposed to bring down prices.

2. They can't maintain some of the newer stations like Buangkok in newer estates. So, they shut them down. Protests by members of said citizens, who went through their members of parliament to complain about the implied intent to open the line by etc.
The company of course refuse.... although they compromised due to political pressure and then open some of the lines earlier. You get the standard screwup. I refuse to believe they actually saved ANY money, because the company kept the utilities on and had station staff even when the line was shut down. Of course, opening earlier means they lost even MORE money because traffic was literally absent.

3. So, the company says, hey, traffic along our new lines is too small. We're going to "rationalise" our services so that more passengers will go through the train lines. They ACTUALLY did say that.

Members of the public now come out in full force and condemn everybody, including said transport body which authorised the new route changes even through the prices has been raised on the train line. The idea of the new network was to actually INCREASE competition. So, why was choice being taken away?
The public was forced to actually pay more money to the company in the forms of increased fees, had to pay more money because they lost bus service that ran directly downtown and now has to reroute their journey through the trains, there was actually no gain in effiency whether in terms of convience, time gained or price reduced.

So, the customers got screwed. Because the company projections got screwed. Then they petitioned the government to step in to cover their mistakes.

Which ignores the fact that the only people who actually benefited was the government which probably had an increased bid money when said government company bought the trainline, the government which had increased revenue from its majority ownership in the company and so forth.


Seriously. Look at government airlines like the Lufthanasa. They own the flight routes and the governments now only subsidise their operations, they directly manipulate flight routes and conditions so that they stay "viable".

[mcc1789]

So how the whole "corporation" aspect is a bit redundant then? I guess the next question then, is how would a government work if it ran more like a business? Is there a single government in the world that doesn't run a deficit or turns a profit? Would you need to even runs things a certain way to do so?

The EIC and government run industries like the NHS or public transport are probably your best look. There's also soverign wealth funds.

Personally, here's a real life ancedote from sillypore. Our transport industries are government linked corporations, in other words, they're both government run businesses. So, to promote "competition", the government decided to direct both companies to "intergrate", so that SMRT, which runs the train will merge with another bus company and then now own taxis, buses and a train. Ditto to SBS, which will now run its own fleet of taxies, its existing buses and a train.

By having competition, this would provide better service, keep prices lower(in the long run) and blah blah blah, free market is doubleplus good!
Now, the train lines in Singapore are built by the government and then sold to the train companies. So, the newly intergrated transport companies need to buy the new train line so as to achieve the capability to offer a fully intergrated transport network(insert corporate blather about how you can get off bus and swing to train seamlessly). Now, this is already nonsense of course, the government owned body CONTROLS the transportation. You want cashless transport? Zing. Done. Directed by the government, all companies has to follow and adopt the Ez-link card. Prices are.... nominated by a transport committee, comprising of civil servants and other members of the public(read, corporate servants).

A secret bid is submitted and lol and behold, SBS won the bid to operate the new NEL.

Whoopee doo........... then problems come in.
1. Prices need to raise on the new train line because of capital costs, operating costs and etc. So, they petition the body to raise prices. Goes through successfully, even though members of the public complained that competition was supposed to bring down prices.

2. They can't maintain some of the newer stations like Buangkok in newer estates. So, they shut them down. Protests by members of said citizens, who went through their members of parliament to complain about the implied intent to open the line by etc.
The company of course refuse.... although they compromised due to political pressure and then open some of the lines earlier. You get the standard screwup. I refuse to believe they actually saved ANY money, because the company kept the utilities on and had station staff even when the line was shut down. Of course, opening earlier means they lost even MORE money because traffic was literally absent.

3. So, the company says, hey, traffic along our new lines is too small. We're going to "rationalise" our services so that more passengers will go through the train lines. They ACTUALLY did say that.

Members of the public now come out in full force and condemn everybody, including said transport body which authorised the new route changes even through the prices has been raised on the train line. The idea of the new network was to actually INCREASE competition. So, why was choice being taken away?
The public was forced to actually pay more money to the company in the forms of increased fees, had to pay more money because they lost bus service that ran directly downtown and now has to reroute their journey through the trains, there was actually no gain in effiency whether in terms of convience, time gained or price reduced.

So, the customers got screwed. Because the company projections got screwed. Then they petitioned the government to step in to cover their mistakes.

Which ignores the fact that the only people who actually benefited was the government which probably had an increased bid money when said government company bought the trainline, the government which had increased revenue from its majority ownership in the company and so forth.


Seriously. Look at government airlines like the Lufthanasa. They own the flight routes and the governments now only subsidise their operations, they directly manipulate flight routes and conditions so that they stay "viable".

I have to say...this does not sound like a failure of competition or free market economics. Rather, this is the exact opposite, what you see all the time: contracting out to corporations, no-bid contracts, and corporate monopolies, all of which only exist with government protection. The situation in Singapore is troubling, no doubt about it. However, there is no "free market" to say nothing of competition as businesses want neither. Only the black or gray market might qualify as this.