Isn't the Iridium Corporation State captialist rather than free market?

from GalCiv3 Forums

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism

 

"a state capitalist country is one where the government controls the economy and essentially acts like a single huge corporation"


Sounds familiar?

I think it's an interesting thought. Even if the Iridium may originally have been just a corporation in a free market economy, if they basically own the planet's economy and act like a government, which is what the game's lore implies, then isn't Iridium actually state capitalist rather than a free market economy?

 

13,113 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Depends if they use an internal market system like... well, almost every reasonable-sized corporation in the world. If different departments and subsidiaries exist and compete, then they can operate as a market even if they're all owned by the same holding company. 

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

If you take the above definition too literally it sounds more socialist than capitalist, and I think it accurately defines the Chinese government today.

In the USA the government doses the economy, more or less depending on who is in power, but Wall Street and other stock exchanges represent a free market. Supply and demand is often manipulated but in the end it is a more or less a controlled/limited free market.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting naselus, reply 1

Depends if they use an internal market system like... well, almost every reasonable-sized corporation in the world. If different departments and subsidiaries exist and compete, then they can operate as a market even if they're all owned by the same holding company. 
End of naselus's quote

Sorry I did not reply earlier I hope I am not too late. Anyway...

According to the game lore while the IC does have a little bit of "competition", for all intents and purposes the IC is a government.

https://www.galciv3.com/databanks/civilizations/iridium-corp

"Although nominally a private enterprise, the Iridium Corporation so thoroughly dominates the Iridium market that it's indistinguishable from a government body to many outside observers."

"few Iridiums see an issue with it – their definition of a free market includes no prohibitions against monopolistic power"

Without knowing exactly how the IC is organized it's perhaps hard to compare it to real world state capitalist economies, but this really doesn't sound like a free market economy at all.

 

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The IC is not a government controlling the economy, but rather a corporation acting as a government.  Considering that a corporations priority is simply to make profits, that would be about the worst thing that could happen to a country...or planet.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting charon2112, reply 4

The IC is not a government controlling the economy, but rather a corporation acting as a government.  Considering that a corporations priority is simply to make profits, that would be about the worst thing that could happen to a country...or planet.
End of charon2112's quote

Well they seem to be doing fine. Then again they are also claimed to be less materialist and greedy than humans.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I doubt that it's really one single company, tbh. The main way that the Iridium Corporation could become such a vast, galaxy-spanning organization is going to have been through mergers and acquisitions. If there's no barrier to entering the market, then it's still a free market - the Corp probably just buys out the best examples of any of the small-fry businesses that crop up with each new generation of technologies. Combine that with a truly enormous amount of sub-division within the company (it's subsidiary structure must be truly insane), and it's entirely possible to have a large number of competing subsidiaries operating in a free market, but all effectively owned by the state.

 

Think about Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is basically a bunch of vastly powerful monopolies. Microsoft absolutely dominate enterprise software, even though there's free alternatives to all their software. Google completely owns advertising and search to the point where their advertizing platform basically demands to be allowed to rape your wallet at will. Facebook controls social media; VMWare reigns supreme in enterprise virtualization tech; Netapp basically IS the network storage hardware market; Amazon is the undisputed master of online shopping. Yet innovation continues, because the reward for entrepreneurs is being bought out by one of these established monopoly players - usually for billions, and usually within 4-5 years of starting up. The profit motive is actually accentuated, because the amount of work needed to achieve enormous rewards is lower than it would be in a less monopolistic sector.

 

Anyway, there's not really any reason why a state-owned company can't compete in a free market - the problem is largely a matter of governments choosing to bail them out when they're unsuccessful rather than letting them go bust. Presumably, the Corp has no such compunction, and happily allows unprofitable subsidiaries to go bankrupt.