A lot of my characters tend to have a political bent (I'm a polisci major, what can I say?) so naturally I go squirreling through books looking for information on the political climate quite regularly but one thing I dont ever really seem to find a lot of is what is happening with major groups like the Communists or Socialists.

You'd think groups like that would be making a come-back because times are tough and people tend to gravitate towards them in rougher economic times. But I've found almost no mention of them anywhere. Am I just failing my search check?

You probably have some socialist fringe groups, but a lot of the answer lies with the corps. Communism is bad for business.

Loose Alliances has a good write-up of such groups. I also have a relatively complete list of all that ever appeared in SR publications, but it's in German for the most part.

On a side note, the Business Recognition Accords seem pretty socialist to me to, at least going from an American context. You have a rather stringent control of banking (allowing fringe states like Tir na nÓg to live as tax havens) and effectively a world government in the ICC.

Megacorps, internally, work like a socialist state too, with limited, 'state'owned consumption available and stringend control of the populace, which works 'for the greater good' more often than not, but also provides socialist ideals like free healthcare, schooling and housing (in exchange for obedience, freedoms, and souls).

In a way, SR's world is a lot more socialist oriented than Real Life, or at least contemporary America.

On a final note, there's quite some difference between socialism and communism, which are about as related as democracy and anarchy. You don't have to like either, but it's just not one and the same.

It's part of the Corporate Court charter to stomp out labor unions at every chance. If you're an A-Level Corporation or higher, you're legally obligated to help them do so, or suffer the consequences.

Sure. Was the first thing Lenin did, too. And Mao.

Yeah, but neither of them had the UN in their pocket with just spare change they found in the Microgravity Couches.

+1 on the Loose Alliances suggestion. It's got exactly what you're looking for (plus plenty of other groups that a poli-sci student should enjoy the Sixth World versions of).

ETA: Amazon's got copies of it used for about $9 right now. That's not too shabby a price for the amount of fluff the book provides.

No, but they both thought they had. Especially Mao. SCARY guy, that.


Totally.

Also, it is a 2063 sourcebook, so it's not like it's 23 ingame years dated. On anarchists though, there were developments (yup, in the Berlin book) - Equity has lost lots of ground in Europe, and UV-X is direct action now. Supposedly.

That book needs to be fanslated if it's not translated ...

I'm still trying to figure out how the hell they found a "Leader" of anarchists...

Except the Soviet Union had working unions right till 1991.
Let's not discuss politics here, shall we?

Our good Captain, mrhm?

And yeah, I add my voice to the choir offering Loose Alliances, it's a really nice book pretty much on the topic you seek.

What he said.

Street fights, winner is the leader. Well, some at least.

The anarchist boroughs of Berlin have various ways of determining their representatives to the city council, from the Vory just sending someone because nobody cares to sit-ins, discussions and votes to ritualised streetfights between gangs, with the winning gang's leader ebing Representative. The intermediate boroughs (too corporate to be true anarchists, but not corporate-run) have standard democratic electiopns, more or less. The coprotate boroughs just send whoever their bosses thinks appropriate.