What do the Corps really want?, looking for discussion Options

[Snow_Fox]

Earlier I was reading From Russia With Love and as it went on about the USSR I suddenly thought "It's like Aztechnology with snow." and it made me wonder, what are the ultimate goals of the tripple A's?

The soviets wanted world dommination and set out to undermine their enemies. What do the AAA's want? We know they do not want open world control, let the governments handle the pesky paperwork but what do they want? Just a profit line? Destruction of their enemies? AZT seems to want dominion of it's region but does it want to expand? Does it care what Cross does in quebec? Does it seek to see Cross fall because it wants Qubec too or because it fears Cross will move into Mexico? or do they just want happy consumers to buy their products?

Is Ares Macrotechnologies really a 'good guy' corp as it projects? Does it seek to rebuild American power or does it like the UCAS weak so it must rely on the home grown corp?

Does Wuxing really care about a pac rim alliance or is it a useful shield against other corps? Does it really want to dismantle its other member states more than it wants to face off competion? and so forth.

If just out for profit, why have the high level of violent spying? What else is their goal? Something more than the bottom line. I mean something gets to AAA status it's not going to go away (Fuchi doesn't count) it can't be taken so why does it try to chop up other AAA's? or are they just trapped in not knowing what else to do but keep rolling on? what 's going on?

[Sweaty Hippo]

The AAA's want what every other business wants: money, prestige, and power.

And the best way to get it is to become an international business and eliminate all competition.

[Carny]

Snow Fox, that's a pretty excellent question.

If it is power they want, by the time they hit AAA, they have it. Same with wealth and (relative) security.

My general take on most of the AAA's is that, as entities, they want to, even have to, expand to survive. Mainly because the people who run them, at every level, believe, quite rightly, that the world is out to get them, and that as a consequence, the only way to secure their own futures, and that of whatever little chunk of corporate power they control, is to get more and more of what they already have.

A AAA corporation, in general, can do almost anything it wants to, so long as they don't run afoul of each other directly, or make enough of a public mess that the Corporate Council has to take notice and action.

So basically they keep expanding, pushed by this need for more, more, more, till they run up against a barrier. That barrier might be another corp, a dragon, some government with enough vestigial ability left to check them, or whatever. After that their desire becomes quite simply to find a way around, over, or through whatever is stopping their expansion.

Which is why the AAAs rarely have absolutely stable relationships, are always scheming and chewing at each other, and every other scrap of advantage, profit and power that comes on offer, etc, etc.

Also why Shadowrunners have jobs, often times.

As always, YMMV

Carny

[Heath Robinson]

A megacorp is still a corp; it doesn't somehow transcend its fundamental nature as a publically traded entity. The triple-A class corps still seek profit, they have an obligation to provide value (ie profits) to their shareholders, they expand to better fulfil this obligation and they attempt to gut or out-manoeuvre each other to steal sales enough to make a major impact.

They only care about making money because the board that elects the CEO is comprised of shareholders that have some interest in an increase in profits.

[PlatonicPimp]

The corporate power structure, and the economic model it functions under, requires constant growth to survive. But they've long ago reached the point where there are few new places to expand to. So instead they merge and eliminate competition and otherwise cannibalize the rest of the economy. The goal of a Megacorp is to make more and more of the economy part of them each year, even if it means lowering the overall economy. It's not power and greed for it's own sake, it's power and greed because to not do so means to perish. Mostly the Megas just want to survive. Eventually, there will simply be no place to expand anymore, and the system built on expansion will either have to fall or change. The corps want to push that off as long as possible.

Other than that, they pursue the personal goals of their shareholders and CEOs.

[hyzmarca]

I'll let The Flying Lizards answer that question.

Yeah, it really is as simple as that. It doesn't matter how much you have. There is no such thing as enough and it is certainly impossible to have too much. It is always possible to have more money, even if you have to build space colonies for the sole purpose of creating new markets and new resources for yourself.

I'll let John, Paul, George, Ringo, and many screaming teenage girls reiterate.

It makes the world go round.

[Siege]

Arguably, this does not preclude an agenda outside of profit - although such an agenda lives and dies with the CEO and/or the board of directors.

It seems unlikely the whole of Coca Cola would be concerned with a vast conspiracy. The average wageslave at any level, and we are all wageslaves on one scale or another, rarely shifts beyond drawing a paycheck and how to spend the weekend.

-Siege

[ludomastro]

The firstmost motivation of any corporation is profit, pure and simple. Profit can be obtained in two ways, growth or increased market share (which is a type of growth) so every corp will expand to reach those. If the CEO (or the people around him) have any brains they look for ways to accomplish both. I work for an oil company that is looking into alternative energy (even has a subsidiary that only does alternative stuff). Is it for the common good? While individuals may work in the division for that reason the oil company recognizes that if it can corner the next big energy source they are that much farther ahead of the competition.

The other thing to keep in mind is that most large corporations work more like a distributed network. There really is no one completely in charge (sorry CEO wannabes) and so the corp takes on a life of its own.

[Icephisherman]

Verbose, but I suppose the tl;dr crowd will ignore this thread entirely.

Let's say that you have A and B. The provider and the consumer.

The most surefire way to power and control in any given situation is for A, the provider, the shape B's, the consumer's very wishes and desires through skillful manipulation in a way that either B knows about and accepts or does not realize because it has always been such a way. Thusly, A sculpts B's desires in such a way that they will not only know their role but actively seek it out.

The corp creates a new product that is so marvelous and new that everyone must have it whether they know it or not. Is it useful? Is it shiny? Does it last forever? Doesn't matter. The consumer needs it and the bright boys working for the corp must figure out a way to make sure that they know they need it and then seek it out much in the way that things are sold today whether we need them or not. We need bread, but we don't need a certain type of bread. Brands names for example are a way of selling a certain type of brand. Before it was just bread. Now it is Wonderbread. And consumer loyalty is built and Wonderbread beats competitors out because people know what they're getting with Wonderbread.

Corps want control, but at the same time they don't want to take responsibility for that control. Corps don't wish to fight wars, pass laws (the ones they don't care about anyway), feed the poor, shelter the homeless, etc that governments often pick up the slack on. They want to sell a product or service. And they want to do so in an environment that actively discourages anything but the status quo because the status quo is good for business. And they wish to expand their markets and thusly expand their profits by gaining new markets in new places. Out of new markets? Create some or cannibalize your competitors which clash with your world view.

Basically, corps want to be something necessary. They want to be something like air. You don't think about it, you're always using it. Why am I breathing air? I can't survive without air, I need it regularly or I would surely perish. Air has no competitors. It is the perfect product. I love the way it sustains me so I may partake in other things that I need, like water. Boy do I sure like seeing and hearing things. Eating and drinking too.

So you see, a corp wants domination, but not. Most of the benefits with fewer drawbacks. Leave that to the chumps who run the governments.

[Kyoto Kid]

I'll let The Flying Lizards answer that question.

Yeah, it really is as simple as that. It doesn't matter how much you have. There is no such thing as enough and it is certainly impossible to have too much. It is always possible to have more money, even if you have to build space colonies for the sole purpose of creating new markets and new resources for yourself.

I'll let John, Paul, George, Ringo, and many screaming teenage girls reiterate.

It makes the world go round.

...Hyz, I'll second the second link (saw the four lads back in '64). that's what it's all about...

...however, according to Kaufman & Hart..."you can't take it with you" So spend it all now!

[FrankTrollman]

The corps don't really want to get more money. They print the money. The money is just an abstraction, and always has been. Electronic numbers, pieces of paper, even gold have no real value. They are just set as part of the social contract as things that people will exchange for goods and services. And those do have real value because they take real resources to produce.

The corps ultimately want to control things. They want to control resources, they want to control territory, they want to control people, they want to control discourse. They don't honestly care about putting their flag on things (except Shiawase and Ares, who actually do), only about controlling things. They want to be the ones who sell you your commlink, because then they control your commlink. They want to be the ones who sell you your food because then they control your food.

The megacorps have established an international currency as a means of keeping score. Who controls the nuyen, controls the wealth, controls the world. All of the big guys will continue expanding until they are destroyed or take over the entire planet. Once they've done that, they'll run the world as a panned economy with very rich and powerful shady dudes running everything. So basically it's exactly like the Soviet Union except that they don't even bother pretending to have the interests of the little guy at heart.

-Frank

[Kliko]

Increase shareholder value... (note not stakeholder value)...

[Fleinhoy]

I can’t believe it! I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Frank Trollman, not a smidgeon of disagreement anywhere!

Damn, I need to go and check my temperature. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

To the OP, since the cynical historian in me can’t let this go unasked:
Anyway, do you mean the USSR as it was portrayed in propagandistic Hollywood and James Bond movies or the real-world thing?

In RL they were no after world domination, and there were several internal fights in the ruling party about just that. On just about every significant occasion the isolationists came out on top

Cold war entertainment was another matter entirely, though. Why let the facts stand in your way when you have such a great badguy on your dorrstep?

[Kliko]

Western 'propaganda' is indeed a nice way to put it. It appears that during the cold war era the USSR had more troops stationed at their China border than in Europe... It appears they where scared shitless for the Chinese at the time.

[Demonseed Elite]

Frank's assessment is very accurate. Profit is important to the public corporations, because they have shareholders to placate, but yeah, since the megacorps print the nuyen, it really does become more like scorekeeping.

Then you have corporations like Aztechnology, which are private and don't have shareholders to answer to. To those who have looked past Aztechnology's PR, the desire for control is quite clear.

[Ryu]

Corps want to grow slightly (growth strategies are out if you are that large), and keep everything they ever gained, if it can make profits in some forseeable future. Individual business units might be more aggressive, and some corps might lack the internal organisation (intentionally) to stop internal competition.

Ares for example will behave like the US military complex does today - they produce weapons, military advisors, combat vehicles... anyone who does that wants war, or at least a threat of war. So their entertainment rating likely includes a few propaganda institutions. The long-term strategy is "stay on top".

Aztechnology is slightly different, because it is quite willing to wage war itself. It has the interests of an owned nation-state to expand, which is even better than extraterritoriality. SK and MCT are ressource-driven corporations, they need to secure exploitation rights to survive. Local politics be damned, control is indeed king.

[CanRay]

First and foremost, power. Increase Shareholder Value, and the power of the marketplace. That is the very lifesblood of a Corporation.

Secondly, it depends on the Corporation, each one has it's own culture and values.

Shiawase, Mitsuhama and Renraku are fully behind a revitalized Japanese Empire because that's part of their culture, despite being their own "Countries". This could also mainly due to the fact that an expanded Japanese Empire means more resources and market for them.

Evo is heavily into the Transhumanism and Equal Rights for Metahumans and Non-Metahumans, mainly due to the board make-up (Buttercup is a fraggin' FREE SPIRIT after all!).

Ares, who knows. They seem to be all "America and Apple Pie" that applies to both the UCAS and CAS, but there's so much going on there...

Horizon is the new guys on the block, and is such a chaotic mess that we're unable to see what they want. Possibly just have a good time and do what they love doing while making a drekpot of money. (What? Only poor, hobbyists are supposed to love what they do for a living?). Media control is a possibility, however, on the concept that if you control their minds, you control their souls.

NeoNET wants to buy the Yankees and the Cubs and get them to win the World Series. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) (Personally, I'm surprised they haven't done this yet.).

Wuxing I'm not so sure on.

Saeder-Krupp... Hell, you ask Lofwyr!

Aztechnology, Aztechnology, Aztechnology. Despite it's popualirty with the Sheeple, this Corporation, rightly, has a bad, bad, BAD reputation in the Shadows that it has rightly earned. Power of a different sort is what they appear to be after. Perhaps Power that you can take with you!

That's just my ideas.

[nezumi]

"Imagine an alien, Fox once said, who's come here to identify the planet's dominant form of intelligence. The alien has a look, then chooses. What do you think he picks? I probably shrugged.
The zaibatsus, Fox said, the multinationals. The blood of a zaibatsu is information, not people. The structure is independent of the individual lives that comprise it. Corporation as life form."

Corporations are a life form by their own right, and in fact go through all the processes we generally attribute to life. What does life want? To adapt to its environment, to collect natural resources in order to grow, to control its territory, to reproduce. And this is what the corporations do. It's a fallacy to consider it a human-controlled organization any more. While it is in fact controlled by humans, it has grown too large for us to manage or understand. Each person, from CEO to mail clerk, can only understand a small aspect of the whole beast, can only try to manage that small aspect, like a single ant in the line, they all push towards the corporations growth (or are excreted as failed cells). It isn't even that corporate bigwigs are bad people. Aztechnology has very many good people in it. But the course of the sum total of human decisions has set the corporation on a course it can't be easily pulled from, and now even the CEO can only gently prod it in one direction or another, and never seeing the whole picture or fully understanding either the ramifications of his actions or the natural defenses the corporation will bring to bear back against him. To say a corporation is human-run is to say that people are cell-run. It's technically true, but ultimately a failed paradigm.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

what are the ultimate goals of the tripple A's?

The answer is easy and scary at the same time: There is no corporate goal. People have goals.

Damien Knight has goals, Lofwyr has goals... but corporate entities as a whole, lose any goals they might have declared quickly. And the AAA's are way past that point. Out of themselves, corporations are just growing and consuming without any purpose.

[Zak]

...Molochs of never ending productivity, a herd of giant animals - all alike and collectively pushing around all the smaller ones - competing for the hunting grounds, rarely in direct competition for a clash between two of those giants would shake the world.
Yet if one struggles, they all gather and cannibalize the body before it recognizes it's mistake.

Tune in next week where we will discuss the rise an fall of Fuchi, here on NatGeo5 - your favorite source of independent information.
[display Horizon ad here]

[Heath Robinson]

...

You honestly believe that life yesterday (or the day before, or befor that - you get what I mean) was the best life could possibly be and the things we have today are pointless and we only buy them because our corporate overseers make us want them? That's scary in and of itself.

The megacorps have established an international currency as a means of keeping score. Who controls the nuyen, controls the wealth, controls the world.

Currency has always been a way of keeping score. The important thing is what it is keeping score of. From the perspective of an economist, transfers of currency are effectively saying "I like what you're doing, do more of it" and that means that corporations looking for higher profits involves providing goods and services that benefit (or satisfy) consumers as much as possible.

[Icephisherman]

You honestly believe that life yesterday (or the day before, or before that - you get what I mean) was the best life could possibly be and the things we have today are pointless and we only buy them because our corporate overseers make us want them? That's scary in and of itself.

Yes and no. What I said was the most effective and subtle path to control. I don't believe I ever mentioned that life will always be descending into something worse. Just because A can shape B's thoughts and desires and make them seek out their designated place within society there is still a conflicting message from many of the corps. Furthermore, there will always be a counterculture which is fueled by relative deprivation (the problem of the poor seeing the rich and wanting what they can't have) and in the case of Seattle, a sense of good old fashioned American unruliness which never disappeared from the scene. Sure, a lot of people can buy into that corporate lifestyle. 2.4 kids, two cars, a nice corporate job, etc, but not everyone can have it. So people rebel because it really is something that you have to buy into. And without that cred you're not a part of that culture.

[Demonseed Elite]

Currency has always been a way of keeping score. The important thing is what it is keeping score of. From the perspective of an economist, transfers of currency are effectively saying "I like what you're doing, do more of it" and that means that corporations looking for higher profits involves providing goods and services that benefit (or satisfy) consumers as much as possible.

Though it is important to remember that the world standard currency is controlled by the ZOG Bank, an organization owned by the Big Ten megacorporations. And that distribution of that wealth down to the consumer level is often distinctly and intentionally unfair (corp scrip, for example).

[Snow_Fox]

The corporate power structure, and the economic model it functions under, requires constant growth to survive. But they've long ago reached the point where there are few new places to expand to. So instead they merge and eliminate competition and otherwise cannibalize the rest of the economy. The goal of a Megacorp is to make more and more of the economy part of them each year, even if it means lowering the overall economy. It's not power and greed for it's own sake, it's power and greed because to not do so means to perish. Mostly the Megas just want to survive. Eventually, there will simply be no place to expand anymore, and the system built on expansion will either have to fall or change. The corps want to push that off as long as possible.

This is more what I was thinking, they seem caught in their own logic, growing because they don't know what else to do but they've reached a level that they are in new territory.
I mean AZT is Mexico. Cross is going to be supprted by Quebec. MTC, Renraku and Shiawase will be carried by Japan. but is their expansion truly necessary? They are in a situation like the european powers were in the 1700's a belief there was only a limited market and the only thing to do is destroy the competition instead of finding new markets.

What happens if someoen discovers that new market?

[Snow_Fox]

To the OP, since the cynical historian in me can’t let this go unasked:
Anyway, do you mean the USSR as it was portrayed in propagandistic Hollywood and James Bond movies or the real-world thing?

Real world protrayal. I mentioned I was reading. Flemming's books are no where near as over the top as the movies and considering his profession before becoming a writer I give it a lot of weight.