How does a Megacorp make money?

[Peregrine]

Re: How does a Megacorp make money?

 

...the introduction of natural monopolies [and] free trade... natural monopolies enabled capitalism

 

I do not think that the emphasized terms mean what you think they mean...

 

 

..because "monopoly" is the antitheses of both. What you have described here is a purer form of merchantilism, where law/regulation/treaty favors one or more economic actors over others, with the right of force ensuring compliance.

[The_Patriot]

Re: How does a Megacorp make money?

 

I do not think that the emphasized terms mean what you think they mean...

 

 

..because "monopoly" is the antitheses of both. What you have described here is a purer form of merchantilism, where law/regulation/treaty favors one or more economic actors over others, with the right of force ensuring compliance.

 

I understand the terms as emphasized by you. I used capitalism in it's generic form since mercantilism is a form of capitalism. Due to the way I've written the economy there isn't a model or term currently in use that adequately embodies it. The way the macro-economy is set up is that it does share similarities with mercantilism, but it isn't mercantilism as you pointed out. Since each Corporate State has natural monopolies over certain goods and that the other Corporate States need said goods a free trade system developed. Trading of those goods between Corporate States is free from all taxes, which is where the capitalism enters the picture due to this being free trade between the Corporate States. Each of the Corporate States need each other for survival because no single Corporate State can manufacture everything that a society needs. High Plains Alliance controls biotechnology, while Republic of West Coast States controls cybernetics.

 

The vehicles engaged in commerce are classified similarly to how naval vessels on the open sea are classified. They are, for all intents and purposes, to be moving islands on the roads belonging to one Corporate State that they are registered in. Any acts of aggression against these vehicles is an act of war, so the Corporate States will not attack them. They will protect these vehicles from attack. The entire system is pretty complex like any economy is.

 

On the micro-economic scale, each Corporate State uses a single economic system internally. For example, High Plains Alliance uses fascism internally, Consolidated Great Lakes States adheres to communism controlled by a central planning commission, etc...

[Clonus]

Re: How does a Megacorp make money?

 

I do not think that the emphasized terms mean what you think they mean...

 

 

..because "monopoly" is the antitheses of both.e.

 

If it's a natural monopoly, rather than one imposed by government, that isn't true. A natural monopoly isn't of course a true monopoly. It's just the possession of something that gives a given party such a competitive edge (like owning the only unobtanium mine in the world), that they will dominate the market.

[Alverant]

Re: How does a Megacorp make money?

 

Where's the profit in going into shooting wars with rivals instead of out-competing them in the marketplace?

Well you can spend millions (or billions) on a new product that may or may not succeed OR you can spend a fraction of that sabotaging your competitor so people will by your product instead. A common theme in cyberpunk is that the right to make a profit overrides little things like the law and human life.

 

Here's a fictional hypothetical. Microsoft makes a secret addition to the next update, a virus that infects any iProduct hooked up to a Windows computer. The virus waits until Apple makes 2 updates (just to play it safe), then suddenly you can't turn it off and the volume is stuck on max. Apple has its reputation damaged and people are going to rival products making your own market share bigger. Even if the virus was countered, some damage would remain. And if what MS did was discovered, they could blame it on a random manager who has been "disciplined" for his/her "unauthorized" actions. Doing that is probably cheaper than improving the Zune and trying to compete with the iPod.

 

And if there are few real profits to be made' date=' how does the corporation support its massive structure?[/quote']

No one said that the megacorps were sustainable in the long term. They're based on greed. You make your money, build up a nest egg and golden parachute, and don't loose much sleep when the decisions that made you rich wind up destroying the company. Unfortunately we're already seeing the effects of that attitude today.

[Brainchild]

Offscreen Villain Darkmatter

[NuSoardGraphite]

The same way corporations make money in today's world: By utilizing the cheapest materials, exploiting their workers and taking advantage of every tax loophole under the sun (and taking advantage of a few under the light of the moon).

 

In Cyberpunk world settings, Mega-corporations are political entities in and of themselves. They can run whole cities, and in some cases, small nations. Their operating profit oftentimes rivals the GDP of moderate sized fairly first-world nations. OCP of Robocop fame is the quintessential Mega-Corporation as is Renraku from the RPG Shadowrun (the Renraku Archology is basically a city with 90,000 employees/citizens living within it) and Arasaka from the Cyberpunk RPG and Genom from the anime Bubblegum Crisis.

 

Cyberpunk Megacorps are not idiots. They price their products competitively and produce several "levels" of product for every member of society. Most Megacorps are into pretty much everything, from clothing, to jewelry to electronics to weapons. Just think of companies like Microsoft, Sony, Apple, Nike etc. It's hard to find a household in any first world country that doesn't have at least 1 product from each of those companies within it. In a cyberpunk world setting, it's 10 times worse. The biggest megacorps have their fingers in everything and it is very, very difficult to get by through life without owning some of their products at some time or other in your life. That chummers, is life in The Sprawl.

 

[NuSoardGraphite]

Outright warfare between megacorps is not a big feature of cyberpunk. When it happens it'll be small scale and mostly through proxies.

 

Indeed, Megacorps prefer to keep their wars small and covert. Overt warfare being A: extremely expensive and B: extremely deadly to large portions of any nearby population. Megacorporations would not prefer there be a lot of collateral damage, after all, if you kill the population of a nation you are attempting to take over, who is going to be left to buy your products when the dust settles? No, no. That won't do. Thus the warfare stays in The Shadows, thus the birth of the Shadowrunner/Edgerunner. Enter the P.C.s...