Why aren't megacorps as big a part of Steampunk as they are of Cyberpunk?

Reynard said:

This discussion raises an interesting question: what qualifies something as a mega corporation, particularly in cyberpunk?

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Hmmm. It depends on the setting, but I’d have said:

- Very large, very rich, very lucrative company that employs a lot of people.

- Usually exploits its employees and probably its customers.

- Is part of a system of similar companies who collectively extract value from the population and work with the government (mainly through corruption, bribery, and regulatory capture) to keep things that way. Together, the system is a functional economic monopoly - you can’t buy, sell, or build anything except via a megacorp.

- Employs whatever legal and illegal means it considers necessary to maintain and expand its influence.

- Is usually very diversified (like the Japanese zaibatsu and Korean chaebol on which they were originally based).

It’s not required to be international, because cyberpunk is often very local - you don’t really care that Stark-Fujikawa also exploits workers in Indonesia, the relevant point is that it’s doing so here, whenever here is.

jian said:

Hmmm. It depends on the setting, but I’d have said:

- Very large, very rich, very lucrative company that employs a lot of people.

- Usually exploits its employees and probably its customers.

- Is part of a system of similar companies who collectively extract value from the population and work with the government (mainly through corruption, bribery, and regulatory capture) to keep things that way. Together, the system is a functional economic monopoly - you can’t buy, sell, or build anything except via a megacorp.

- Employs whatever legal and illegal means it considers necessary to maintain and expand its influence.

- Is usually very diversified (like the Japanese zaibatsu and Korean chaebol on which they were originally based).

It’s not required to be international, because cyberpunk is often very local - you don’t really care that Stark-Fujikawa also exploits workers in Indonesia, the relevant point is that it’s doing so here, whenever here is.

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None of this hits right with me.

I think the core of the megacorp is that it is both a) international to the point of being beyond national laws, and b) owns hundreds (or more) of subsidiaries that control every aspect of customers' lives.

Military is known for guns, but it also owns the gas stations and dentist offices.

Reynard said:

This discussion raises an interesting question: what qualifies something as a mega corporation, particularly in cyberpunk?

Click to expand...

The concept of being "too big to fail"

They control supply of goods that are essential to the economy to the extent that disruptions to the supply has major social and political fallout.

Further they are invested in a network that influences communications/information, giving them leverage in politics so that government authorities will ignore any dodgy practices and abuses. Operating across borders helps them to be beyong the jurisdiction of national laws and thus able to act with impunity

MarkB said:

Eberron's dragonmarked houses aren't a bad example if you want to get megacorp-ish in your Steampunk setting. They do still have at least some government / nobility ties in most cases and mostly aren't as overtly amoral as your standard corp, but they're nevertheless up for some shady stuff under the right circumstances.

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And importantly they insinuated themselves as nobility due to the influence of their businesses rather the other way around

Reynard said:

This discussion raises an interesting question: what qualifies something as a mega corporation, particularly in cyberpunk?

Click to expand...

They're extremely large corporations with powers typically reserved to governments like the ability to tax, hold sovereign territory, maintain a standing army, etc., etc. I think the idea behind them were influenced by zaibatsu which themselves were large Japanese companies typically controlled by a single family. A zaibatsu might operate in several areas of the economy including automobile manufacturing, banking, agriculture, arms production, etc., etc.

MGibster said:

They're extremely large corporations with powers typically reserved to governments like the ability to tax, hold sovereign territory, maintain a standing army, etc., etc. I think the idea behind them were influenced by zaibatsu which themselves were large Japanese companies typically controlled by a single family. A zaibatsu might operate in several areas of the economy including automobile manufacturing, banking, agriculture, arms production, etc., etc.

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Yes, I think they’re very much based on zaibatsu or Korean chaebol (which are similar but if anything even more diversified and economically dominant). I don’t think they need to have a standing army, but private security who can go wherever they like and shoot whomever they like with no functional government controls or law enforcement is close enough.

Similarly, I don’t think they levy taxes or perform other functions of government (run law courts, keep the streets in good repair, general infrastructure, etc.) because there still is a government which does those things but is completely subservient to the megacorps and is therefore very corrupt at every level (from traffic cops all the way up to the mayor, governor, or president). This is the ideal situation for megacorps - no responsibility for running anything (and no blame for power cuts etc.) but able to do whatever they like and extract all the value they want without interference.

(Korea and Japan are of course not nearly this bad, and weren’t even back in the 80s when these tropes were established, but the zaibatsu/chaebol are certainly very powerful and government officials are very careful about stepping on their toes unless this is an election year and they’re running on an anti-corruption platform.)

jian said:

Yes, I think they’re very much based on zaibatsu or Korean chaebol (which are similar but if anything even more diversified and economically dominant). I don’t think they need to have a standing army, but private security who can go wherever they like and shoot whomever they like with no functional government controls or law enforcement is close enough.

Similarly, I don’t think they levy taxes or perform other functions of government (run law courts, keep the streets in good repair, general infrastructure, etc.) because there still is a government which does those things but is completely subservient to the megacorps and is therefore very corrupt at every level (from traffic cops all the way up to the mayor, governor, or president). This is the ideal situation for megacorps - no responsibility for running anything (and no blame for power cuts etc.) but able to do whatever they like and extract all the value they want without interference.

(Korea and Japan are of course not nearly this bad, and weren’t even back in the 80s when these tropes were established, but the zaibatsu/chaebol are certainly very powerful and government officials are very careful about stepping on their toes unless this is an election year and they’re running on an anti-corruption platform.)

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Of course the great myth of Zaibatsu is that they were these powerful dynasties who could act with impunity. The reality of post-war Japan is that the economy was centrally planned by the new Japanese Government - in particular MITI who was the agency who determined if a Zaibatsu had access to foreign currency or technology, and largely orchestrated the system of horizontal cross investment that keeps Japanese companies interdependent.
It wasnt laissez faire and it wasnt quite state capitalism, it was state negotiated guild capitalism.

so, TIL diselpunk

Which led me down the wikipedia rabbit hole of cyberpunk derivatives. I like this sentence on the wiki

where punk genres are really defined by taking the technology of a given time period, and stretching it to highly sophisticated, fantastical, or even anachronistic levels.

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I think one of the qualities of a megacorp in cyberpunk settings is it's transnationalism/ubiquity. The fact that Renraku, a Japanese corp, has a huge arcology in Seattle, (in Shadowrun) is a big part of the flavor of the megacorp

How about the fictional concept of Standard Oil, Union Pacific (or other railway(s)), US Steel, and JP Morgan all merged into one big conglomeration - JP Standard Industrial. And we pick a town that's a "company town" - perhaps Omaha Nebraska. And then a "pick 'em pal" of which robber baron to put as the master mind behind it all... (this is US based of course).

Pick a large mid-western US city, like Omaha or St. Louis. I like St. Louis, because here's my possible setting that's steampunk Shadow-run esque.

It's 1890. Every millennia, the wheel turns, and brings the city of the Other Folk close again. It was last adjacent to our plane beginning in 800 CE, and was here for over 300 years, before moving away again on its peripatetic journey through the spirit plane. The Adjacency begins with a single small mound appearing, and the Scout's arrival. The Scout is here to determine if this Adjacency will be one of generally peace - or war.

Basically using the idea of the rise and fall of the ancient city of Cahokia (across the river from St. Louis, Missouri, US) to make it a fantasy setting, where in the past, when Cahokia was here, it was relatively peaceful. But this time, in 1890? Who knows - it will depend on the PCs to negotiate a peaceful engagement. But JP Standard Industrial's Department of Leveraged Buyouts of Non-Standard Assets Division ("The Woggers") Vice President of Acquisitions, Bernard Brinker (Yale, 1868) may have different ideas. The possible riches that can be exploited from the Other Folk and their lands are untold.

At least, that's one possible campaign frame. And everyone wears top hats and goggles, it's required


Also, check out this absolutely FIRE map of the US Railroad system in 1890.