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Posted by: hobgoblin Jun 24 2011, 05:20 AM

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/06/08/a-brief-history-of-the-corporation-1600-to-2100/

reading this, and finding that the EIC dealt in opium, makes me wonder about the similarities between the two.

"But eventually, as the threat from the Dutch was tamed, it became clear that the company actually had more firepower at its disposal than most of the nation-states it was dealing with."

oh dear...

Posted by: hermit Jun 24 2011, 08:02 AM

Every SR megacorp is insired by the EIC. However, drug trade is not Aztechnology's core business, nor did it ever act as the armed agent of cartels, so it's not as direct as you think. Aztech's money came from illicit (or at least questionable) dealing, but big deal, most corporations', SR and real, did.

EIC is, in many ways, the only true megacorp in the SR sense that ever existed. It is a hybrid of state and company, a trade firm that has massive military assets and uses them to ensure it's profits. Also, EIC was intertwined with the british state in a way many SR megacorps are with their host nations - Saeder-Krupp with Germany, Ares with the UCAS, Cross [RIP] with Quebec, Aztech with Aztlan, or NeoNET with the UK. The two regularily shared military assets, too.

In more modern times, though, no corporation has anywhere near so much power (though Russian oil producers and the American defense industry cartel are moving that direction again).

Posted by: Wakshaani Jun 24 2011, 01:41 PM

Well, there're a few... Kraft has a breadth that most people don't understand, Wal-Mart makes money on par, or greater than, most SR Megacorps, Pepsi and Coke have worldwide brand reach and, more importantly, fund mercenaries and government action in Afirca, while DOle, Chikita Bannana, and other produce companies routinely toppled governments in the past, giving rise to the term 'Bannana Republic' ... seriously! Grab a history book and you won't find it, but take a peek at Wiki sometime fo rthe full details.

Aztechnology, as *the* major food producing corp (Rar, agribusiness!) and consumer goods machine, falls closer to Kraft than teh resource-exploitation of the EIC, which really only had one main product and a few spinoffs from luxury good importation.

(As an example, here's a short list of things Kraft owns.)
Kraft (duh)
RJR Tobacco
Nabisco
Sheffeild Arms ice cream
Breyer's ice cream
Lender's bagels
Tupperware
Frusen Gladje ice cream
Celestial Seasonings Tea
Duracell
Phillip Morris (tobacco company)
Oscar Meyer
Maxwell House
Jell-O
Kool Aid
Crystal Light
Tang
Post cereal
Shake n Bake
Jacobs Suchard
Freia Marabou
Bird's Eye Frozen Food
Milk Bone
Cadbury
Oreo
Hydrox
Toblerone
Stride
CHicklets
Trident
Dentine Gum
Digorno Frozen Pizza
Tombstone
Delissio
Philadelphia Crea Cheese
Vegemite
General Foods Corporation

Heck with it, here's a longer list of brands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kraft_brands

It just keeps going and going and going. They focus on transitory products (food, cigarettes, etc) rather than softlines (clothing) or hard goods (Stuff that you keep), but they have subsidiaries that do that too.

Posted by: Fortinbras Jun 24 2011, 01:57 PM

If the folks at Archer Daniels Midland got up tomorrow to find their profits and influence on par with Kraft, they would kill themselves.

Kraft is a series of packaging. ADM makes the stuff inside the packaging. If you live in North America, ADM is involved in making just about everything you eat. If you don't, ADM is responsible for how much you pay for it. Almost everything Kraft makes comes from agri-business involving ADM. Everything from Oreos to Milk Bone comes from grain, which comes from ADM. They recently got involved in deciding how much you pay for gas through ethanol.
Not to mention their poor environmental record and price fixing.

If anybody in in 2011 is Aztechnology, it's Archer Daniels Midland.

Posted by: hermit Jun 24 2011, 03:11 PM

Highly unlikely. SR megacorps exist on a level that is far beyond everything that exists recently, and that includes true giants like some chinese state holdings. Wal-Mart also isn't even bg worldwide; it's doing well in the Americas but not so well in Europe and mostly failed to gain footing in Asia. It's size depends on the US market; take that away and precious little remains. SR megas are much more spread; Líder or Carrefour (both Aztech brands) each should have a higher turnover and trade volume than Wal-Mart. Each controls thousands of subsidiaries AND is it's own world-spanning corportaion. These corps are beyond anything real (and quite possibly realistic).


Actually, Aztech is Wal-Mart, ADM, Grupo Carso, Pemex and a dozen other companies combined. AND most major Mexican and Latin American cartels.

Posted by: Fortinbras Jun 24 2011, 03:27 PM

If it's all fair game, then Aztechnology are Therans.

And no good sentence ever started with the word "Actually..."

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jun 24 2011, 03:59 PM

You know? I have heard that somewhere before...

Posted by: Critias Jun 24 2011, 04:07 PM

That makes me wonder what sort of history books you read.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Jun 24 2011, 04:37 PM

American ones would be my guess.

Posted by: hermit Jun 25 2011, 07:39 AM

Riiiight, I see you really know your fluff.

Posted by: Wakshaani Jun 25 2011, 12:17 PM

Quite true. Ours never cover that sort of thing, sadly.

Posted by: Critias Jun 25 2011, 10:40 PM

Sure they do. Our textbooks suck, but everyone has crappy textbooks. Actual history books -- written by historians, focused on a topic, with proper research and bibliographical support for their assertions -- are precisely the sort of thing that the oft-praised wikipedia types get their information from.

Posted by: Wakshaani Jun 26 2011, 03:07 AM

*wince*

Duly rebuked, good sir!

(Lord knows I have two shelves of research books for that exact purpose, not four feet from this desk.)

Textbooks are what I was going with, but that's an unfair dispersion, in truth.

I'll be over here, repenting.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 26 2011, 03:33 AM

*Looks at my own research library* Stupid moving provinces...