AlphaGazette #06: Business on the Go | SC06 – CorpDox

As late-stage capitalism turns the U.S. into a feudal empire, companies formerly invested in improving the quality of life have been dropping any pretense of concern for public welfare or good works. Enriching their own elite and protecting the interests of stockholders has always been priority number one for the vast majority, but we are seeing aggressive anti-consumer actions lacking empathy or concern for the people that built their empires in the first place. This isn’t really news, of course. Corporate arrogance and greed has been a staple of American life for decades, but it feels worse somehow, probably because they aren’t even trying to hide their disdain anymore.

Meanwhile, the largest mega-corps have grown beyond measure, with pieces in multiple countries, spreading and absorbing everything around them, all the while getting bolder, more aggressive, perhaps even dangerous. Eventually, continued illegality just becomes too time-consuming and needlessly expensive to fight for some entities, and they will decide to uproot altogether—to the sky, to the middle of the ocean, or perhaps to a neutral corporate state where anything goes as long as the coffers are filled. Some won’t have to move at all, their imprint having grown large enough to call themselves an independent state while supporting a defense budget to rival a first-world nation.

The corporate city-state has been an inevitability at least since Reagan freed corporations from the shackles of public accountability and government oversight, and rich people the burden of income tax. You might say we are coming full circle from a few centuries ago, when Europe was a patchwork of fiefdoms, and kingdoms, and city-states, each operating independently or in tandem with others when it suited their goals. They eventually merged into larger kingdoms and empires, so is that to be the layout of the post-capitalism landscape as well? The Amazon States vs. Microsoft Matrix vs. The Googleplex.  Where would you live? 

In true capitalist fashion, where there's a need, there's someone willing to exploit it. CorpDox is merely one out of many, a company that fabricates building-sized escape pods for companies whose shady dealings finally caught up with them.