The plausability of uber-corporations

[Shinova]

I'm sure we're all familiar with at least one incarnation of the uber corporation in sci-fi one way or another. A company that is so rich and so powerful that they have direct influence or control over governments and can operate and do things outside of legal or moral boundaries, and have budgets rivaling that of major countries (or civilizations, if we take this to space) and have their own highly advanced armed forces.



Can such entities exist?

[Pablo Sanchez]

Can such entities exist?

Not with the way corporations and nations work today. Large Western corporations currently exercise tremendous influence in developing areas and actually do maintain private armies (oil conglomerates in Indonesia are a good example of this). However, corporations are always less powerful than the nations they are based in and limited by the forbearance of their native governments.

[Sea Skimmer]

They more or less already have existed. Look up the history of the East India Company, a company that essentially conquered India and deployed a fleet more powerful then that of most nations, including hundreds of warships. It was only disbanded and India placed under British goverment rule in 1858. Though by then its relative strength in the world had greatly declined and it no longer fielded a significant fleet of warships. The Dutch East India Company was also huge, it conquered much of Indonesia, had a web of other international training posts (they where the first Europeans to trade with Japan and had concessions there long before the US forced the country pen in 1854). The Dutch East India Company also fought openly on sea and land with the British East India Company over the spice trade.

However in a modern environment new incarnations of those companies are unlikely to emerge, though they could if the world stopped giving a damn about some areas in even a passing sense.

[Frank Hipper]

Hey, The United Fruit Company WAS Guatemala early in the last century, practically. It's what the term "Banana Republic" was invented for.
Good example, albeit on a much more reduced scale than what you're looking for.

[Master of Ossus]

I'm sure we're all familiar with at least one incarnation of the uber corporation in sci-fi one way or another. A company that is so rich and so powerful that they have direct influence or control over governments and can operate and do things outside of legal or moral boundaries, and have budgets rivaling that of major countries (or civilizations, if we take this to space) and have their own highly advanced armed forces.



Can such entities exist?

In short, no. The uber-corporations almost always develop their power by controlling multiple completely separate industries. That simply does not work, economically, since after a point management issues will damage the company's ability to respond in any of its industries, so it will be weeded out by competition.

[Sarevok]

They more or less already have existed. Look up the history of the East India Company, a company that essentially conquered India and deployed a fleet more powerful then that of most nations, including hundreds of warships. It was only disbanded and India placed under British goverment rule in 1858.

Great leader IIRC the East India company lost control over India in 1812 not 1858.

[Sea Skimmer]

Great leader IIRC the East India company lost control over India in 1812 not 1858.

No. However in 1813 the company did lose its official trade monopoly and was once more forced to trade competitively on markets that had in some cases been exclusive for 200 years. It however didn't stop administrating India until 1858, when it lost control because of concern over its handling of the Sepoy rebellion in 1857-1859, and other conernces realting to the general situation. For example, in India the East India company had more of its own troops then the British Army had in the whole world.