Understood. As I said, that is pretty tame, but it's basically anything that might get someone busted if their bass or coworker was to walk by and look over their shoulder. That's our concern.

GE would be a good megacorp. They're much bigger than wal-mart.

Or simply large banks. There are numerous banks around the world with over 1 trillion dollars in assets.

If Viacom and Disney would merge, that'd make a nice and huge corp.

The French threat of the "Strongly Worded Letter" and the German warning of "Please don't do nasty things" pleas terrify the entire world. They couldn't deal with the Serbia!! without the US. Geez.

Talking megacorps.. am I the only one thinking microsoft?

Not the only, but it's silly. Wal-mart doesn't produce anything on their own. They're strictly a retail store. Not even close to megacorp status.

But extraterritoriality is the only difference between real life and SR corporations that is not just one of scale, but an actual qualitative difference.
I don't want to dismiss quantitative differences, but still, extraterritoriality is the only point where we can clearly draw the line, where we can say "this hasn't happened in similar, albeit less drastic ways before."
Where it becomes evident that we are not just talking about a really big company, but about something new, about the next step in economic evolution.

All of the other stuff, from taking over entire towns, even states, to building up private armies, from forming corporate enclaves all the way down to whacky stuff like employees singing the corporate anthem at the beginning of a new work day- is already there.
As well as vertical monopolies, agglomeration of wealth in smaller and smaller numbers of big players and increasing control over the public opinion.

There's no ten corporations controlling more than half of the world economy, okay, that's a notable quantitative difference, but i don't see how, of all existing companies, effin' WalMart should come close to such a degree of dominance over international markets.

Damnit, you beat me too it - General Electric is clearly the closest thing currently to a megacorp, but citigroup might be close.

http://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html
now this is kinda scary, top 100 economic entities, (2000 although) rather intimidating still that GM ranks 23 (Right before denmark) and btw, from my point of view.. its already companies that runs the world, what else is the power behind the throne?

Consumers. Corporations might have many advantages, but if people don't like Zune's over Ipods they won't buy them even if big bad Microsoft sells them.

And all of the top 20 but China (as far as I'm aware) have some type of elected government.

Consumers who live to work rather than work to live?
its really an evil circle which the only benefitors is.. well, people with enough money to not care, or people with nothing but lives aside from the system (and they arent really benefiting from the system)
But even the mega multimillonaires are stuck in the evil circle of consuming

You work to A) get the bare nessecities (singing bear making entrance) B) get resources for R&R
you work for oh! I know, the corperations! now thats what i call a threesome
the corperations screw you of you of money who you work for them to gain, just so that you can continue to live and make more money.. what's the purpose of that?
42!
no... that doesnt work

In the case of Russia, you'd have to stretch "some type" a bit...

I demand linkage!

Edit: Oh wait, it was tame? Never mind.

Beat me to it.

I sincerely recall that what really boosted the Mega Corps to world dominance was their complete domination of the third-world. Now, many will say that they saved millions of lives, bringing medicine and technology to them, but they also enslaved them in the same illusion of capitalism. I recently watched the Bill Gates speach at the Davos World Economic Forum, and he is promoting the production of goods that will make many millions, if not BILLIONS more people consumers.

Bill Gates Davos Speech

Now, life is a good thing (I think that is a fact that can commonly be agreed upon). Im not necessarily saying that all the people's lives that may be saved from such action is a bad thing. But at what point do we draw the line between Freedom and Life?

As players of Shadowrun, we exist outside of, and yet sometimes aspire to be a part of this society that provides for us at the same time enslaving us with the desire for more, that keeps us working from birth till death and consumes our energy like a giant power plant. When the whole world is one, who will be at the top?

I think Miscrosoft is leading the way towards becoming our first AAA.

Naww you're thinking of the Finns. the Swedes folded like a stack of cards. Their last claim to military fame was when Gustavus Adolphus went south and started kicking the crap out of all the Holy Roman Empire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Empire
now lets drop this, and stay on topic.

That Gates speech was intruiging, not only does it further my view that capitalism is evil, It also clearly proves that either Mr Gates is in denial or trying to trick the system.. hmm, wonder what's he is up to

It depends upon how you want to measure a corporation. However by most measures Wal-mart is indeed currently the largest company in the world. It employs more people, and generates more revenue (ie number of sales) than any other corporation in the world. Its not the most profitable however, that honer currently belongs to Exxon-Shell and the rest of the oil companies. GE is probably the largest widely diversified corporation (they have their fingers in all sorts of pies), and some Japanese corps incorporates more of the SR ideal of corporate culture (living on site and what not).

But honestly no current corporation really compares with SR mega-corps. The best modern day comparisons are probably the government. The US Government is one of the worlds largest employer and collects the most revenue (taxes) though isn't especially profitable . It of course has its own armed forces, some manufacturing facilities, and housing. It certainly contracts out huge portions of business. And while not extra-territorial, nations are obviously currently sovereign over territory they control.

I suppose some of the mega-coprs of old like Standard Oil, Union Pacific, or especialy the East India Company (and other similar ventures) were pretty close to the idea of a mega-corp. Large, powerful, fingers in many pies, sovereign (at least partially) over their territory, and diversified. Also they were run as corporations (with shareholders and the like) unlike modern governments.

What alternative would you recommend to capitalism? Socialism? Don't make me laugh. Discredited by countless failures around the globe. Capitalism is far from perfect, given the difficulties of working within reality, but the alternatives are much worse.
[/rant]

What makes a megacorp IMO is the sovereignty and the military. To me at least, a Megacorp is essentially a government that makes a profit, and I can't see modern corporations lining up to shoulder even a fraction of the burdens of sovereignty.

In addition, it seems that very few modern corps have anywhere close to the diversity that the Shadowrun megacorps have. For example, isn't ARES involved guns, vehicles, aerospace, security, construction, and some more that I can't think of. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a modern corp within anywhere close to that kind of diversity.

Give you a call when I find a working solution, although socialism could work if humans werent ultimately so un-altruistic
(read: Egoistic)

I strongly disagree about Microsoft. Beyond computer software, the only thing they've expanded into is media through NBC. While they have offices overseas, their portfolio is very narrow.

Actually, Walmart and Microsoft are actually very SMALL businesses... sure, their revenues are quite high but they are still small

Tata (an Indian corp) and a lot of asian companies are a *LOT* bigger.

Also, you might want to take a look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conglomerates

Yeah, I know! Man, every time I think about the hellhole Sweden is today, I think about how utterly horrible it would be if I lived in a country like that.

Wait, what?

~J

Postscript: yes, it's a social democracy, not a pure socialist structure.

China anyone? as far as I know Communism counts under socialism
(on the paper the fastest growing economy in the world..)
and sweden is no longer governed by the socialdemocrats, we got a conservative(ish) reign right now

Look at this one!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThyssenKrupp

The big thing for the megas is that they are diversified. They are in different areas so cannot be pigeon holed.
Microsoft is rich and powerful but very tightly focused.
Viacom is a bit more spread out.
GE is a good example since they also own, I think, one of the US TV networks.
Disney is working that way doing films, home entertainment, cruise lines and other theme parks but they need to diversify a little. Like maybe manufacturing vehicals then heavy industry building to sell to others. (Like their monorails)

Man is this scary just because it almost sounds like Saeder-krupp?

China is an interesting example because they apply concepts of hyper-exploitative, Manchester-style capitalism to a state-controlled economy with frightening success.

Does this make them communist?
Don't think so.
They where, if i recall correctly, the only communist-run country bold enough to label themselves not as socialist (the transitional stage to communism), but having achieved a truly communist society.
Still, this has never held any truth, imho.

Communism would mean a truly classless society, ownership of the goods of production by the workers, abolute equality- i do not see this anywhere in China, neither now nor under Mao.




Probably, social democratic was a reference not so much to a single political party, but to the concept of western European wellfare states.
Despite of now largely conservative governments, most people still think of Scandinavia in general still as the prime example for the successful application of the wellfare state approach.

As far as Thyssen-Krupp is concerned, there is a reason why they became the model for the only European AAA megacorp.
Krupp's corporate culture always has been close to what people asociate with a megacorp, although in a slightly more benevolent way.

This whole idea of the strong identification of the employee with the "corporate family" has always been closely related to them.
Even though Saeder-Krupp ignores some aspects of their corporate culture due to a certain golden-scaled reptile.
The whole notion of the Krupps as a kind of capitalist royal family has somehow fallen by the wayside.

Much of the fear we have of shadow run type “megacorp culture� is actually cultural racism. Several of the early cyber punk writers which started the genre looked to Japan and their work ethic/culture and played to the fear that such a determination would surely become dominant over the lazy western work tradition. They found elements of a foreign culture that, as westerners, frightened and alienated them. They then portrayed selected aspects of that tradition with sinister allusions to dehumanize it and make it appear a credible threat to our way of life. The early connotation was not “look how awful that is for the workers there�, it was, “OMG! these people are going to conquer us economically to get back at us for WWII�. It later morphed into “OMG it’s going to suck when they take us over and we have to work like that�. Ultimately the fear of Megacorp culture is the fear that our culture may be changed to be something more like a culture seen by the earlier cyber punk writers as more ruthlessly efficient and foreign.

<qr>
Walmart isn't even close to being the biggest corporation in the US. It's just a retailer so it's pretty prominent.

Actually, that depends on how you look at it, GoldenAri; who's the biggest in what measure is often in a state of flux, but Wal-mart usually has the most revenue while ExxonMobil and various service industries have higher profits. ExxonMobil may service more of the world one way or the other, but bottomline is Wal-Mart sells to the lowest common denominator in a country that consumes a disproportionate amount of goods and services, and they're one of the top corporations in the world no matter how you slice it. Combine that with Wal-Mart's profound psychological effect whenever it enters a new market (whether it's realistic or not, small business area ALWAYS worried about getting squeezed out when Wal-Mart comes to town) and it's no wonder it springs to mind so readily.

If you really want to look at companies that get a disproportionate amount of press relative to their size, you need to look at professional sports franchises like the NFL. Here in the US teams regularly get gigantic subsidized stadium deals that save them hundreds of millions of dollars yet the total value of all 32 franchises is only about 30 billion dollars. While that's certainly not peanuts one has to wonder how many jobs a region could attract by offering several hundred million dollar tax break packages to businesses that provide employment and services to a wider range of people.

McDonald's.

Every time I read this, I see the subtitle and read it as "First Actual Mage?" not "First Actual Mega?"

Chris

I just reread what I posted and the thought "God, Wal-Mart are like Azzies from Arkansas!" sprang to mind. I mean really, fuel, heavy industry and finance is what the Big S-K does (just like Big Oil and the insurance companies today), so everyone has to go through them to get anything done, but at the end of the day most Sixth World denizens make use of those resources to drive down to the Stuffer Shack and pick up some soykaf and toilet paper.

I can just see it now.

"I'm sorry sir, we don't normally carry 15XL Jackets in stock. If you'd like we can send out an order though."
"Force 5 summoning foci Isle 12, Magex brand Bran Flakes Isle 2, Security Drunk and Disorderly Troll Isle 5 please escort to security office."
"The owner of the blue Eurocar Westwind 3000 in lot 15 space A7 has left their lights on.You need to have your vehicle turn them off."
Said to co-worker, "I'm on break Merl, you have the watch(As of course transactions are made over Commlink*Score one for the Technophiles like myself!*)."

Like I (and others have said) it depends heavily upon how you want to measure it. In terms of assets various banks dominate (I think either Citigroup or Barclays is the top right now), but these ventures are not as profitable as the oil companies currently. In revenue Walmart currently is on top, though the oil companies and Microsoft are close. In terms of Market value (value of outstanding stock) results can be odd, as stocks like Microsoft and GE are more highly valued then other companies more profitable then they.

Oddly enough the classic conglomerates are generally not as successful as the more focused business tend to be. Banks dwarf them in terms of assets, and GE is the only conglomerate with in the top 10 or so in sales/profit. Walmart is certianly much larger then the Tata group mentioned earlier. Some figures for you guys to consider:

• Wal-mart: Revenue $351.1B, Profit $11.3B, Assets $151.1B, Equity $61.5B, Market Value $188.8B, Employees 1,900,000
• GE: Revenue $149.7B, Profit $16.3B, Assets $673.3B, Market Value $348.4B, Employees 319,000
• Exxon-Mobile: Revenue $328.2B, Profit $36.13B, Assets $208.3B, Equity $113.8B, Market Value $362.5B, Employees 106,100
• Citi-Group: Revenue $120.3B, Profit $24.6B, Assets 1,494.04, Market Value $230.93, Employees 332,000
• Microsoft: Revenue $51.1B, Profit $14B, Assets $67.2B, Market Value $279B, Employees 79,000
• Tata group: Revenue $28.9B Employees 246,000

The fact that Wal-Mart employs a not insignificant fraction of the worlds popultion should earn it the title "Gestational Mega". All the need is their own enclaves and a cradle to grave approach to employment.

That being said I'm not sure if that sort of employment will ever happen unless the world suffers upheavels on par to those that happen in the 6th world. Companies stopped housing and feeding their people when they realized it was cheaper just to turn them loose and pay them the same. Unless there was a strong economic incentive to return to that (like gangers are keeping your workers from getting through the sprawl to work) I doubt they ever will.

Interesting notion.
Some time ago, i had similar concerns regarding this issue.
See, this whole "cradle to the grave" thing harkens back to the abovementioned cyberpunk tradition, the fear of Japanese corporate culture, with monolithic corporations wallowing in their aristocratic, elitist, clandestine traditions.
But it is not on par with current hire and fire policies, with overheated markets, constant fusions, gigantic companies suffering hostile takeovers to be chopped apart, the parts sold back for profit.

Upheaval in the megacorporate sector since SR3 has adressed this partially, but still didn't change the concept of lifelong employment and absolute dedication to a single company.
In SR, the only way to lose your job still seems to be extraction by a team of runners.
Fits traditional zaibatsu policy, but it just doesn't work out with the way contemporary economics work.

In fact, this is an aspect of corporate life people here in the Rhine-Ruhr area, where companies like Krupp, Bayer or Gerling have all moved away from their traditional "corporate family" approach, are actually beginning to miss.

Well to argue in favor of SR and against myself I think it's reasonable that megas have cradle to grave policies. Without strong central governments to shoulder the costs of day to day societal maintenance there are strong economic motivators for corporations to step in and assume those duties. My image of a SR mega is that they are, for all intents and purposes, government bodies. Government bodies designed to make money, but government bodies none the less. They exists only because traditional governments are unable to perform the functions (such a guarenteeing public safety) that they once did. This is crystalized in the landmark case that made the megas in the first place. Essentially the government said "Well yeah, if you'd let them get to that toxic waste... that would have been bad. Good on you for lighting those civilians up." and that was that.

wal-mart?

please. try General Electric, Boeing, and Nestle foods.

And considering that 2050 is as far away from today as 1966 is, why do you feel Shadowrun needs to conform to contemporary economics or hire and fire policies?

~J

You are fairly close in my mind atleast. McDonald's and BK are fairly widespread. I've seen both in Europe, the Middle East, Korea, and Japan. So the are multinational atleast.

- Regarding sheer size and global reach, RL multinational currently tend towards SR megacorporations.

- Regarding diversification, this is rather the opposite. RL multinationals are a lot more specialized nowadays, with only a few exceptions remaining (General Electric comes to mind, as well as Korean and Japanese companies).

- The type of tight shareholding structure seen in SR, with individuals owning large part of the capital, have almost disappeared in large companies IRL. And the current model might change again with those "sovereign funds" everyone keep talking about these times.

- IRL, there is a clear separation between financial and industrial groups. There are even regulations in some countries preventing banks from conducting certain kinds of business. Purely financial group in SR are rare (HKB, PacRim Bank, previously the MIB) and two AAA, Seder-Krupp and Wuxing, play in both field.

- Concerning regulation, the global trend had been for years deregulation. Megacorporate extraterritoriality can be considered the very last step of this. Still, we are probably going to see IRL tighter regulations concerning pollution and finance (thanks to Enron, Société Générale and everything in between). On the other hand, if SR megacorporations escape national regulations, the Corporate Court enforce its own. As SR megacorporate system is in the end controlled by shareholders, I would expect tighter than tight CC regulations regarding accountancy and shareholders rights.

- Multinationals are increasingly substituating to the states. Multinationals set up secured enclaves for their westerner enployees working in Mid-Eastern or African countries. For a lot of Europeans, the US healthcare system would fall in the same category, as private research funding (which should teach us on both side of the Atlantic something about relativism and how people'd see their world in 2070).

- Corporate culture is back, but not corporate allegeance. Japanese companies had both, but this is less and less true. Besides, in mom & pop business in the XIXth and early XXth century, we also had strong corporate allegeance in western societies (when you'd stay working in the same factory your entire life because that was the only one in town, and two third of the city hall budget came from it).


Now, if I had to put in a single sentence what make SR megacorporations different from other companies : a megacorporation is a company whose management and employees are no longer bound to a country, on every level. That's what makes megacorporations strong : they can reply to any government trying to pressure them "then we leave" and be able to do so (which might not always be enough to frigthen the government ; the second key element to SR megacorporate system is the ability of megacorporations banded together behind the Corporate Court to frighten and make them piss their pants -almost- every government). Nowadays, no big company can seriously ignore US or China. Not just because they're weaker than megacorps, but also because those governments are much stronger than they are in SR. Still, in Third World countries, there are a lot of multinationals who already enjoy megacorporate-like powers on a local scale

• Wal-mart: Revenue $351.1B, Profit $11.3B, Assets $151.1B, Equity $61.5B, Market Value $188.8B, Employees 1,900,000
• GE: Revenue $149.7B, Profit $16.3B, Assets $673.3B, Market Value $348.4B, Employees 319,000
• Nestlé: Revenue $76.1B, Profit $5.9B, Assets $75.1B, Market Value $113.9B, Employees 305,000
• Boeing: Revenue $61.5B, Profit $2.2B, Assets $60B, Market Value $59.6B, Employees 159,000
• McDonalds: Revenue $20.5B, Profit $2.6B, Assets $30B, Market Value $44.1B, Employees 365,000

Look I'm no big fan of Wal-mart by any means, but those underestimating the size of the company are very mistaken. By many metrics it is the worlds largest corporation and a big one no matter how you measure it. Boeing and Nestle don't even measure up.

I would agree that present coporations are heading more towards the SR ideal of Megas. Thankfully they are not extra-territoral (yet). However I would argue that there were times in the past were the mega-corporations of the day (like Standard Oil or The Honorable East India Tea Company) were even more so in their day. Someone like JP Morgan or Rockefeller was a real-life Damien Knight.

Diversification seems to be coming up a lot as a topic here. McDonald's is closer than Wal-mart because it isn't just the retailer but the producer as well, however it still falls short.

People seem to think that diversification means everything has the same name. Of course that's not true. Is it Aztechnology Shack? No, it's Stuffer Shack. Nestle owns Jenny Craig (note, not Nestle Craig), Dreyer's ice cream, Purina and Gerber, and has a major piece of L'Oreal (cosmetics). These companies are by and large all in food, one way or another, however, but we saw this progress really spurt up in the 80s. Mitsubishi is even stronger. Mitsubishi has under its umbrella oil companies, glass, banking, fire insurance, seafood, nuclear power, shipping, coal mining and several dozen auto parts manufacturers, and it continues to grow. Mitsubishi is an example of the Japanese zaibatsu; conglomerates that flourished primarily because so many different businesses all were part of the same corporate family. A lot of other times the relationships seem tenuous, and are through individuals or holding companies. An example would be Wizkids is owned by Topps, Topps is owned by Tornante, Tornante is owned by Michael Eisner, who has his own corporate interests.

For those who don’t know, McDonalds is not really in the fast food burger business; there in the real-estate and franchising business. A skillful examination of McDonalds finances reveals that their bread and butter is in setting up new stores with franchises.

I wouldn't necessarily call McDonald's a producer anymore than I would call Wal-Mart a producer, Nezumi. They depend on suppliers just like Wal-Mart does, and if anything it's Wal-Mart that is notorious for the pressure they exert on "independent" companies they do business with, not McDonald's. Last I heard upwards of 40% of the products sold in Wal-Mart stores are actually made by Wal-Mart subsidiaries, and they continue to keep expanding their repertoire of store brands every year. Like you said, diversifying is sneaky.

Corporations don't WANT to be in the government business, much less maintain militaries. The ROE on an armored division really sucks. And it's hard to maintain 20% profits and 20% growth per year running a state when you are taxing yourself for the operating costs.

It's typically much easier to convince the local government to do what they want rather than doing themselves. And if that fails, you sue the government, as Exxon Mobile is doing.

True. That's why franchises have to lease from the land from McDonald's corporate. Brunswick was in the bowling alley business largely as a real estate play, and I'm told that the self-storage places are typically also real-estate plays.

The whole concept of corporations and shareholders as conceptualized in modern law doesn't reflect how they really are these days. Exceedingly few investors really care what the company does, they care only about the financials. If the financials don't work the shareholders don't typically object (as the law assumes they will), they just sell. That's why you get the inbred boards of directors, because stock holders are as "invested" in a company as a vegas player in in the blue chip he puts down for a spin on a roulette wheel.

And people running companies are not interested in shareholders rights.

Depends, at least as far as the military part is concerned.
A normal, standing army, protecting or enforcing national interest, is of course not a profit-generating institution.
A mercanery force hired out to anyone interested, however...that's a different issue.
We have, on several continents, reached a point where war has actually become profitable again.

Where warlords, governments, or better yet, self-proclaimed governments of the day, actually maintain war as a status quo, either because the total collapse of civilian society is the basis for the business those pseudo-governments conduct (as in the case of states who have produced a kidnapping industry, such as Columbia), because resources are heavily disputed (as in the Kongo) or because constant low-intensity warfare ensures that authocratic leaders stay in power (as in Angola, where the "government" has even sold arms and ammunition to the "rebels" to uphold the civil war).

These war economies inevitably attract various corporations, since they provide a double opportunity for profit :
you get access to resources below world-market prices and have an excellent opportunity to sell military hardware and contracts for military services.

Scarcer resources tend to make such operations a lot more profitable, increasing the number of corporations dabbling in the field of warfare.