For the second installment of the Caldari Dialogues, I'm going to be taking a look at the corporations of the Caldari State: where they came from, how they operate and compete, their objectives and how they work to accomplish them. From here on out, we'll be talking about the modern Caldari State, at least as it was prior to May of this year; the events with Tibus Heth have been, in my opinion, rather contradictory to everything that came before, so I'm going to avoid talking about them. This article series is, to be quite honest, intended to explain my problems with those events in terms of plausibility, so that shouldn't be too huge a surprise for anyone.
I'll be relying on a couple of sources for a lot of my references in this chapter. The primary one is going to be Corporate Shadowfiles, the superb Shadowrun sourcebook written by the late Nigel Findley, one of my role models as a game designer and fiction writer. This book includes a number of things that people interested in the State will find supremely useful, including a discussion how modern corporations are structured and operate, various methods of corporate competition, and a number of Shadowrun-specific notes on various incidents between megacorporations that can give a great deal of insight on what probably happens in a similar cyberpunk setting like we find in the State. This book is an excellent primer on corporate capitalism that is not only extremely well-researched and informative, but an excellent and interesting read.
Other references and influences include the Mekong Dominion Leaguebook for Heavy Gear, a well written sourcebook about a society on Terra Nova structured very much like the Caldari State, Blade Runner, Max Headroom, the collected works of William Gibson (especially the Sprawl Trilogy and the Bridge Trilogy), and I'm sure a zillion other things I can't remember right now. Basically, my ideas about the State are very rooted in the cyberpunk genre, which is something that I think CCP definitely had in mind when they were developing the State.
So without further adieu, let's move on. The body of the article continues behind the cut.
I'll be relying on a couple of sources for a lot of my references in this chapter. The primary one is going to be Corporate Shadowfiles, the superb Shadowrun sourcebook written by the late Nigel Findley, one of my role models as a game designer and fiction writer. This book includes a number of things that people interested in the State will find supremely useful, including a discussion how modern corporations are structured and operate, various methods of corporate competition, and a number of Shadowrun-specific notes on various incidents between megacorporations that can give a great deal of insight on what probably happens in a similar cyberpunk setting like we find in the State. This book is an excellent primer on corporate capitalism that is not only extremely well-researched and informative, but an excellent and interesting read.
Other references and influences include the Mekong Dominion Leaguebook for Heavy Gear, a well written sourcebook about a society on Terra Nova structured very much like the Caldari State, Blade Runner, Max Headroom, the collected works of William Gibson (especially the Sprawl Trilogy and the Bridge Trilogy), and I'm sure a zillion other things I can't remember right now. Basically, my ideas about the State are very rooted in the cyberpunk genre, which is something that I think CCP definitely had in mind when they were developing the State.
So without further adieu, let's move on. The body of the article continues behind the cut.
Origin of the Corporate State
Okay, to start off, here's some quotes for you to chew on.
Of course, the key component of the State's society is the corporation. There is nothing in the State that they do not control in some way; no one in the State, from those at the highest levels of power to the people who scavenge from the detritus of society to survive, are untouched by their influence. If you don't know how they work, how they interact, and what they want, you miss out on a huge part of why the Caldari State acts like it does. As much as their history shapes them, the corporations are what makes Caldari society what it is.
The first thing you need to realize about the megacorporations is that their primary purpose is, above all else, to make money. The modern idea of a corporation originated in Europe (especially the Netherlands and England) during the 16th century. The concept was a way to accomplish a number of tasks; first, it allowed a greater capital investment by allowing a number of investors to consolidate their capital under a single entity, which also served to spread the risk of a failed investment among a wider pool of investors. It also served as a layer of abstraction to protect the personal assets of those investors. The key fact to take from this is that it was designed to increase the earning potential of the investors (shareholders) while protecting them from the financial backlash of a failed venture.
The corporations were concerned that the Federation would strip the colonies from them, which would essentially nationalize billions of ISK in investment by the corporations. Understand what this means -- the fundamental reason behind the Caldari war of independence was preservation of corporate assets, not nationalistic fervor. Yes, of course the corporations spun it as a patriotic fight to win the independence of the Caldari people, and certainly it's possible that was part of the reason, but the primary reason given in what comes closest to a history text is that the corporations didn't want to give up their colonies and were getting tired of Gallente regulation. A slightly more extreme version of "no taxation without representation," perhaps.
So the first thing we need to remember about these corporations is that whatever else their goals are, they want to make money first and foremost. Otro Gariushi didn't treat Ishukone workers better than most purely out of the goodness of his heart, he did it because he thought it was a wise economic policy in the long run, something that recent events appear to have borne out. Other corporations believe that the price of caving into the workers would be higher than simply smashing any objections by force, as in the Kassigainen incident. When we look back at what I said about Caldari morality in the last installment, this is in some part due to the fact that Caldari tend to see things in the form of a cost-benefit analysis. This is, of course, somewhat subjective, and different people are going to look at different goals -- Gariushi seemed to take a longer-term view, while others looked at the shorter term. We can see that in today's market as well, where people like Warren Buffet have considerably different views than some others.
However, the one thing we have to keep in mind is that the corporations in the State have lasted a long time; at least a century, probably considerably longer. While they were likely not as big as they are now for their entire existence, corporations cannot survive for very long without being somewhat conservative and focused on long term development, something that ties into the Caldari mindset very well. That is probably one reason why the recent downturn in the State has caused a bit of panic; something isn't working and now they are trying to fix it, and change is almost by definition traumatic. However, it seems extremely odd that when one corporation is successful in maintaining its fortunes, as Ishukone has, that no other corporation, not even one of the Practicals, who are known for being extremely flexible, has even attempted to try and duplicate Gariushi's success. This seems rather odd to me, and it's something I hope is addressed as time goes on.
Corporate Sovereignty
We're told that in the State, pretty much everything is owned by a corporation, and that on their territory, they rule supreme. Most people in the State are not Caldari citizens, they are Ishukone citizens or Lai Dai citizens or Sukuuvestaa citizens; they are only Caldari citizens because the corporations have seen fit to unite for the purpose of foreign relations. We've been led to believe that corporations can own entire planets, as this article seems to indicate, but it also seems likely that on many of the most populated worlds in Caldari space that multiple corporations own territory, perhaps even inside the same city, whether divided into various "quarters" (perhaps there is an "Ishukonetown" in every major city on New Caldari) or simply have sovereignty in various buildings, such as the Renraku Arcology in Shadowrun.
Presumably, other corporations cannot enter corporate territory without the permission of the owner; if someone wanted by the Home Guard flees to a Hyasyoda world, there's nothing they can do until Hyasyoda grants them permission to pursue them. Of course, in many cases, Hyasyoda may simply find, arrest, and extradite the person, but in some cases -- for instance, if the person was actually a corporate spy for Hyasyoda, they may deny the request and Kaalakiota will be forced to file suit with the Tribunal in order to get the person (and considering that corporations are loathe to cede power to those regulatory agencies, they would likely be unable to do that either). This also means, however, that if you are an Ishukone citizen visiting a Lai Dai settlement and things go south between the two corporations, it could be very bad for you.
The only organizations that appear to have any sort of authority over the corporations are the four Statewide governmental agencies, the Chief Executive Panel, the Caldari Navy, the House of Records, and the aforementioned Caldari Business Tribunal. The Panel and Tribunal serve similar functions to the Corporate Court in Shadowrun, while the Navy provides an important element of national defense to bolster the corporate military forces, necessary due to the inherent distrust that exists between the corporations. The House of Records, while perhaps not as high profile as the other three, registers contracts and other official documents to provide a neutral witness to any agreements. What sorts of regulations do these national entities enforce? Well, to the surprise of many, perhaps, probably nothing that we would call criminal law in today's society, which would simply be enforced by corporate justice systems. What you'd likely see the CEP and CBT doing is providing a stable market and an even playing field for everyone to ensure a safe environment in which to do business.
"Why," you may be asking, "do the corporations agree to the authority of the CEP and CBT if it restricts their activities?" After all, I did just say that the corporations' chief goal is to make money. The thing to keep in mind is that that their previous experience with the Gallente has made them very distrustful of outsiders, and the corporations realize that without some measure of unity they can't hold off a larger state like the Federation or the Empire. Furthermore, in order for them to do business without constantly being at each other's throats, there needs to be a nonviolent method for them to resolve most of their differences. While war can be good for an economy, what you need to remember is that the Caldari corporations can't sell war materiel to the government, because they are the government. That means that any costs for a war they have to bear out of pocket, and their assets will be the ones at stake if combat ensues. The perceived costs of fighting a corporate war, or a war with one of the other nations, have to be higher than the corporation thinks it stands to lose by not fighting. Furthermore, security isn't an investment, it's overhead -- every ISK they spend for new ships for their military forces is a dollar they can't spend on marketing, or research and development, or some other budget item that will actually give them a return. That issue is one that we can see brought up in this article.
Corporate Ownership and Structure
In general, most corporations in Eve appear to be public corporations, with at least a significant number of their shares being traded on the open market, despite what the various corporation information pages suggest (if, in fact, Kaalakiota owned 55% of Caldari Constructions, for instance, Tibus Heth never would have been able to buy out the company from them without their consent). Public corporations offer shares on the stock market in order to generate operating funds; during an IPO, shares purchased from the company go directly into their coffers. Shares serve two purposes then; for the company, they generate capital that can be used for improvements or acquisition of more assets, and for the shareholder, they entitle them to both some say in how the company operates as well as a portion of their dividends.
Shareholders exercise this control through both directly voting on some issues at shareholder meetings (such as corporate mergers), and by participating in the election of a corporate board of directors, who represent the will of the shareholders in the corporation's operations. Any or all of the directors can be replaced at shareholder meetings, though it's worth keeping in mind that most corporate officers and directors are usually large shareholders, or representatives of large shareholders, which makes it hard to unseat them in most cases (for instance, Bill Gates owns some 9% of Microsoft stock, making him the company's single largest shareholder, and Steve Ballmer owns about 4%, according to Wikipedia). Generally, the board only gets replaced when there's a significant shift in stock ownership, usually as a result of a hostile takeover.
I've inserted the two cinematic examples above to illustrate my points; corporate takeovers, as in the two movies above, happen because someone, either an individual or another corporation, obtains a significant portion of stock, and then uses that as leverage to get their own board of directors in charge of the company, who can then replace corporate officers and change corporate policy; in the two cases above, to take the company, sell off its assets, and pocket a nice chunk of change, and in the case of the Nanosecond Buyout, simply to give Damien Knight control of Ares Macrotechnology. The shareholder doesn't need 51% of the shares; usually, they just need enough to give them a competitive amount with any other voting bloc, and then the fight comes down to proxies (known as a proxy fight). Proxies are shares whose owners have given legal control of their vote over to another entity, so that that other entity can vote their shares for them. There are, of course, numerous defense strategies, but those are a bit much for this article; however, you can read about them on Wikipedia; there's a good list of them here.
Here's a big chunk of out discussion for folks to chew on that is somewhat connected to what I'm talking about:
The corporation's board generally handles strategic goals and large-scale actions by the corporation, leaving day to the corporate officers, who are generally either appointed by them, or appointed by the CEO (who is appointed by them). In some cases, corporate officers may also be on the board, but this isn't necessarily the case; for instance, for many years, Bill Gates was both CEO and chairman of the board of Microsoft, but a few years ago he stepped down and turned the CEO position over to Steve Ballmer. What this means, however, is that while the CEO may seem to be a dictatorial ruler of a corporation, that isn't actually the case. He is still responsible to the board of directors and through them, to the shareholders. If he isn't take the company in a direction they like (usually, hurting the company's financial future -- or present, in the case of more short-sighted investors), he can be replaced with relative ease. Shareholders, like voters in a more democratic state, can of course be rather fickle, though wild swings are generally less common due to the fact that in the State (and in most modern corporations) shares, or at least their proxies, are generally concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of extremely wealthy individuals, corporations, or various investment funds. These facts are another reason I find the sudden rise of Tibus Heth hard to swallow, since the corporate world doesn't quite work the way CCP would seem to portray it.
All right, so now that we have that long lesson in how corporations work out of the way, you're probably saying, "well, that's all well and good, but I don't understand what that has to do with anything in the State." Well, to be fair, most of this is all happening on a level far above any of the heads of us capsuleers; the amount of money and influence being thrown around at that level is probably fair more than most alliances have to deal with. What you should get out of this, however, is the fact that there are checks and balances on corporate power at some level; if a CEO is destroying his company, or a corporation's stock is plummeting because of repeated failures, you'll see that CEO ousted, you'll see that company's stock bought up by some opportunistic corporate raider, or something. The one thing you won't likely see is them sitting there on their hands and hoping things change for the better soon, however.
All right, I think that's enough for now; next time, I'll be talking about the "normal folks" of the Caldari State, Joe and Jane Sixpack, the corporate workers, and how the corporations keep their control over the populace. That is really where I think the most interesting parts of our discussion went, and I think probably the most enlightening parts for Yoshio and Kai. In the meantime, feel free to let me know what you think, even if it's "Jesus Christ, woman, why don't you just shut up!" :)
Okay, to start off, here's some quotes for you to chew on.
[12:22] <Svetlana> Out of curiosity, Yoshi, how much cyberpunk have you read?Okay, I pick these two quotes because they illustrate something important for people to realize. It is impossible for someone to understand how the State works without understanding the basic building blocks that make it up. The cyberpunk dystopia is a clear influence on how the Caldari State was built in the game; if you don't think so, compare this brief definition with what we know about the State, or have a look at the visuals in Blade Runner or the numerous works it has inspired (any art for the Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2020 RPGs, for instance) and compare them to the aesthetic we see for the Caldari. Without that underlying understanding, you miss out on one of the major parts of how the State works.
[12:22] <Yoshito> I don't think I've read any.
[12:23] <Yoshito> I was supposed to read Neuromancer for a class in college, but I dropped the class before we got to it because it was too early in the day.
[12:23] <Kai> lol
[12:23] <Kai> Prob for the best.
[12:23] <Kai> Look at poor Sveta.
[12:23] <Svetlana> uh hrm.
[12:23] <Svetlana> That does explain a lot :P
From Corporate Shadowfiles, pg. 9:
>>>>>[Have you guys read through the file summary? What gives? This board's for shadowrunners, not economy and business majors. Definitions of megacorporate structure? Junk bonds? Leveraged buyouts? Give me a fragging break. Why do I need to know all this stuff?]<<<<<
-- Honker (20:19:42/4-2-54)
Of course, the key component of the State's society is the corporation. There is nothing in the State that they do not control in some way; no one in the State, from those at the highest levels of power to the people who scavenge from the detritus of society to survive, are untouched by their influence. If you don't know how they work, how they interact, and what they want, you miss out on a huge part of why the Caldari State acts like it does. As much as their history shapes them, the corporations are what makes Caldari society what it is.
The first thing you need to realize about the megacorporations is that their primary purpose is, above all else, to make money. The modern idea of a corporation originated in Europe (especially the Netherlands and England) during the 16th century. The concept was a way to accomplish a number of tasks; first, it allowed a greater capital investment by allowing a number of investors to consolidate their capital under a single entity, which also served to spread the risk of a failed investment among a wider pool of investors. It also served as a layer of abstraction to protect the personal assets of those investors. The key fact to take from this is that it was designed to increase the earning potential of the investors (shareholders) while protecting them from the financial backlash of a failed venture.
[12:29] <Yoshito> But my point is that the megacorps of the Caldari State are more than just corporationsNow we come to the first roadblock between the way I see the State and the way a lot of other people seem to see the State. They see the corporations as existing to preserve the State, when when the truth of the matter, is that the State exists to preserve the corporations. From what we know of the State, the current government came about as an effort by the Caldari corporations to preserve their assets in the secretly settled worlds of the Caldari colonies, which, according to this chronicle, were owned by the Caldari corporations. It's unclear whether they took power because of the war starting, or whether they were in control beforehand, but the State Factionalism chronicle seems to indicate that they were already largely in control by that time.
[12:29] <Svetlana> But they aren't. Not anymore than corporations in cyberpunk are.
[12:30] <Svetlana> At the root of everything they do, they still want to make money.
[12:30] <Kai> Meep....
[12:30] <Yoshito> I don't think that's true, in the Caldari State though.
[12:30] <Kai> I think that's a bit simplistic, Sveta.
[12:30] <Kai> They don't have some root concern, imho
[12:31] <Kai> Their interests and responsibilities seem far more nebulous than simply "ISK is the bottom line."
[12:31] <Svetlana> No, they really do. :)
[12:31] <Kai> Oh. OH. Ok.
[12:31] <Kai> When you put it like -that-.
The corporations were concerned that the Federation would strip the colonies from them, which would essentially nationalize billions of ISK in investment by the corporations. Understand what this means -- the fundamental reason behind the Caldari war of independence was preservation of corporate assets, not nationalistic fervor. Yes, of course the corporations spun it as a patriotic fight to win the independence of the Caldari people, and certainly it's possible that was part of the reason, but the primary reason given in what comes closest to a history text is that the corporations didn't want to give up their colonies and were getting tired of Gallente regulation. A slightly more extreme version of "no taxation without representation," perhaps.
So the first thing we need to remember about these corporations is that whatever else their goals are, they want to make money first and foremost. Otro Gariushi didn't treat Ishukone workers better than most purely out of the goodness of his heart, he did it because he thought it was a wise economic policy in the long run, something that recent events appear to have borne out. Other corporations believe that the price of caving into the workers would be higher than simply smashing any objections by force, as in the Kassigainen incident. When we look back at what I said about Caldari morality in the last installment, this is in some part due to the fact that Caldari tend to see things in the form of a cost-benefit analysis. This is, of course, somewhat subjective, and different people are going to look at different goals -- Gariushi seemed to take a longer-term view, while others looked at the shorter term. We can see that in today's market as well, where people like Warren Buffet have considerably different views than some others.
However, the one thing we have to keep in mind is that the corporations in the State have lasted a long time; at least a century, probably considerably longer. While they were likely not as big as they are now for their entire existence, corporations cannot survive for very long without being somewhat conservative and focused on long term development, something that ties into the Caldari mindset very well. That is probably one reason why the recent downturn in the State has caused a bit of panic; something isn't working and now they are trying to fix it, and change is almost by definition traumatic. However, it seems extremely odd that when one corporation is successful in maintaining its fortunes, as Ishukone has, that no other corporation, not even one of the Practicals, who are known for being extremely flexible, has even attempted to try and duplicate Gariushi's success. This seems rather odd to me, and it's something I hope is addressed as time goes on.
Corporate Sovereignty
We're told that in the State, pretty much everything is owned by a corporation, and that on their territory, they rule supreme. Most people in the State are not Caldari citizens, they are Ishukone citizens or Lai Dai citizens or Sukuuvestaa citizens; they are only Caldari citizens because the corporations have seen fit to unite for the purpose of foreign relations. We've been led to believe that corporations can own entire planets, as this article seems to indicate, but it also seems likely that on many of the most populated worlds in Caldari space that multiple corporations own territory, perhaps even inside the same city, whether divided into various "quarters" (perhaps there is an "Ishukonetown" in every major city on New Caldari) or simply have sovereignty in various buildings, such as the Renraku Arcology in Shadowrun.
Presumably, other corporations cannot enter corporate territory without the permission of the owner; if someone wanted by the Home Guard flees to a Hyasyoda world, there's nothing they can do until Hyasyoda grants them permission to pursue them. Of course, in many cases, Hyasyoda may simply find, arrest, and extradite the person, but in some cases -- for instance, if the person was actually a corporate spy for Hyasyoda, they may deny the request and Kaalakiota will be forced to file suit with the Tribunal in order to get the person (and considering that corporations are loathe to cede power to those regulatory agencies, they would likely be unable to do that either). This also means, however, that if you are an Ishukone citizen visiting a Lai Dai settlement and things go south between the two corporations, it could be very bad for you.
The only organizations that appear to have any sort of authority over the corporations are the four Statewide governmental agencies, the Chief Executive Panel, the Caldari Navy, the House of Records, and the aforementioned Caldari Business Tribunal. The Panel and Tribunal serve similar functions to the Corporate Court in Shadowrun, while the Navy provides an important element of national defense to bolster the corporate military forces, necessary due to the inherent distrust that exists between the corporations. The House of Records, while perhaps not as high profile as the other three, registers contracts and other official documents to provide a neutral witness to any agreements. What sorts of regulations do these national entities enforce? Well, to the surprise of many, perhaps, probably nothing that we would call criminal law in today's society, which would simply be enforced by corporate justice systems. What you'd likely see the CEP and CBT doing is providing a stable market and an even playing field for everyone to ensure a safe environment in which to do business.
"Why," you may be asking, "do the corporations agree to the authority of the CEP and CBT if it restricts their activities?" After all, I did just say that the corporations' chief goal is to make money. The thing to keep in mind is that that their previous experience with the Gallente has made them very distrustful of outsiders, and the corporations realize that without some measure of unity they can't hold off a larger state like the Federation or the Empire. Furthermore, in order for them to do business without constantly being at each other's throats, there needs to be a nonviolent method for them to resolve most of their differences. While war can be good for an economy, what you need to remember is that the Caldari corporations can't sell war materiel to the government, because they are the government. That means that any costs for a war they have to bear out of pocket, and their assets will be the ones at stake if combat ensues. The perceived costs of fighting a corporate war, or a war with one of the other nations, have to be higher than the corporation thinks it stands to lose by not fighting. Furthermore, security isn't an investment, it's overhead -- every ISK they spend for new ships for their military forces is a dollar they can't spend on marketing, or research and development, or some other budget item that will actually give them a return. That issue is one that we can see brought up in this article.
Corporate Ownership and Structure
In general, most corporations in Eve appear to be public corporations, with at least a significant number of their shares being traded on the open market, despite what the various corporation information pages suggest (if, in fact, Kaalakiota owned 55% of Caldari Constructions, for instance, Tibus Heth never would have been able to buy out the company from them without their consent). Public corporations offer shares on the stock market in order to generate operating funds; during an IPO, shares purchased from the company go directly into their coffers. Shares serve two purposes then; for the company, they generate capital that can be used for improvements or acquisition of more assets, and for the shareholder, they entitle them to both some say in how the company operates as well as a portion of their dividends.
Shareholders exercise this control through both directly voting on some issues at shareholder meetings (such as corporate mergers), and by participating in the election of a corporate board of directors, who represent the will of the shareholders in the corporation's operations. Any or all of the directors can be replaced at shareholder meetings, though it's worth keeping in mind that most corporate officers and directors are usually large shareholders, or representatives of large shareholders, which makes it hard to unseat them in most cases (for instance, Bill Gates owns some 9% of Microsoft stock, making him the company's single largest shareholder, and Steve Ballmer owns about 4%, according to Wikipedia). Generally, the board only gets replaced when there's a significant shift in stock ownership, usually as a result of a hostile takeover.
I've inserted the two cinematic examples above to illustrate my points; corporate takeovers, as in the two movies above, happen because someone, either an individual or another corporation, obtains a significant portion of stock, and then uses that as leverage to get their own board of directors in charge of the company, who can then replace corporate officers and change corporate policy; in the two cases above, to take the company, sell off its assets, and pocket a nice chunk of change, and in the case of the Nanosecond Buyout, simply to give Damien Knight control of Ares Macrotechnology. The shareholder doesn't need 51% of the shares; usually, they just need enough to give them a competitive amount with any other voting bloc, and then the fight comes down to proxies (known as a proxy fight). Proxies are shares whose owners have given legal control of their vote over to another entity, so that that other entity can vote their shares for them. There are, of course, numerous defense strategies, but those are a bit much for this article; however, you can read about them on Wikipedia; there's a good list of them here.
Here's a big chunk of out discussion for folks to chew on that is somewhat connected to what I'm talking about:
[13:10] <Yoshito> Well, I think part of the thing is the CEOs aren't supposed to put their personal interests ahead of the interests of the State. They have been doing so, which is why things have gotten bad.
[13:11] <Svetlana> The problem is that they are acting against both. :)
[13:11] <Yoshito> Assuming Heth is bad for the State, of course.
[13:12] <Svetlana> That's not what I'm talking about.
[13:12] <Yoshito> What are you talking about?
[13:15] <Svetlana> I mean, completely ignoring the workers until it gets so bad that they are rioting, and then stepping down voluntarily is both against their interests and those of the State. :)
[13:15] <Svetlana> Why _didn't_ they just give the workers what they wanted?
[13:16] <Svetlana> And by that, I mean shorter hours, dental, whatever they were striking for.
[13:16] <Svetlana> Even if Heth wanted to shanghai the corporation, 90% of the workers probably didn't have any investment in him personally. As long as they get what they want, why do they care who runs the company?
[13:17] <Svetlana> Would you voluntarily step down from a sweet job you didn't have to?
[13:17] <Yoshito> Because they don't think they have to. Because they think giving up anything hurts the corporation's bottom line, and that'll make them look even worse. Because they think violence would solve the problem. Because admitting they were running their businesses wrong in the State is the worst thing a CEO could do.
[13:17] <Svetlana> The only reason for him to quit and step aside is if he's doing so shitty the shareholders say "you assface, you're screwing my company."
[13:18] <Svetlana> So why sell the stock if they care what happens to the company?
[13:18] <Yoshito> Yeah, and I think the shareholders are doing that. And they're giving the CEOs the opportunity to step away with some honor left.
[13:18] <Yoshito> Why would who sell the stock?
[13:18] <Svetlana> Well, in CC's case, why would KK sell their stock?
[13:19] <Svetlana> The company is getting screwed. Stock price is in the crapper.
[13:19] <Yoshito> Because the value was tanking and they thought "Well, this company has gone in to shit. Easier to sell it off and start over than trying to fix things."
[13:19] <Svetlana> Either they can sell and take a horrific loss, or they can compromise, give them just enough to get 90% of them to shut up, and make back a lot of that money when they stop rioting.
[13:20] <Svetlana> If they just wanted to get rid of the company, why do they care about looking weak?
[13:20] <Svetlana> Why not cave in, then wait for the share price to go up and sell it off?
[13:21] <Svetlana> Then you don't lose as much money, the workers aren't rioting, and next time they start making demands it'll be some other schmoes problem.
[13:21] <Yoshito> Because there was no guarantee that once the rioting stopped that the shares would recover.
[13:21] <Yoshito> The Caldari economy was in dire straights before.
[13:21] <Svetlana> It sounded like the shares were in crappy shape already
[13:21] <Svetlana> how much worse could they get? :P
[13:21] <Yoshito> Yeah, probably
[13:22] <Yoshito> Well, if the shares used to sell for $100 a share, but were down to $10 a share, they could fall to, like, a $1 a share and be even worse
[13:22] <Svetlana> Not really. you're still basically losing their entire investment. If they cave in and the shares go back up to $20 a share, they make twice as much. :)
[13:23] <Yoshito> Yeah
[13:23] <Yoshito> If they thought the shares would go back up to $20
[13:23] <Svetlana> Alternatively, they could buy everything at fire sale prices
[13:23] <Svetlana> take complete control of the company, and then do whatever they wanted.
[13:23] <Yoshito> If they thought the shares would only go down more once they caved to the workers, then they'd sell off.
[13:24] <Svetlana> That seems unlikely.
[13:24] <Svetlana> a company that isn't producing anything and is having physical assets destroyed is a lot worse than one that has higher overhead :)
[13:25] <Yoshito> Traditional Caldari Wisdom says caving to the workers is the sign of a bad CEO! A CEO who caves to the workers surely cannot negotiate with other CEOs! He's a puny little wimp! The corporation will be even worse off.
[13:25] <Svetlana> Where have you heard that?
[13:25] <Svetlana> Traditional Caldari [and corporate] wisdom says that making money is your top priority -- if you aren't making money, you're screwed.
[13:25] <Yoshito> Nowhere, really. It's just a general vibe I've gotten
[13:26] <Svetlana> Well, I have never gotten that. Besides, it might be bad in the long run, but in the short term, it will be good.
[13:26] <Yoshito> Right. But over the past 100 years or whatever, it's been the Caldari who cut costs by taking things away from the workers who have been better off.
[13:26] <Svetlana> But now, that's not the case.
[13:26] <Yoshito> It's only once they cut too much that things have been going bad
[13:26] <Svetlana> Gariushi is the only one NOT having that trouble.
[13:27] <Svetlana> Why wouldn't they emulate his tactics?
[13:27] <Yoshito> Because people are stubborn and stuck in their own ways.
[13:27] <Svetlana> All of them?
[13:27] <Svetlana> To a one?
[13:27] <Svetlana> That seems unlikely.
[13:27] <Svetlana> They aren't stupid.
[13:27] <Kai> You and April have a lot in common, Sveta.
The corporation's board generally handles strategic goals and large-scale actions by the corporation, leaving day to the corporate officers, who are generally either appointed by them, or appointed by the CEO (who is appointed by them). In some cases, corporate officers may also be on the board, but this isn't necessarily the case; for instance, for many years, Bill Gates was both CEO and chairman of the board of Microsoft, but a few years ago he stepped down and turned the CEO position over to Steve Ballmer. What this means, however, is that while the CEO may seem to be a dictatorial ruler of a corporation, that isn't actually the case. He is still responsible to the board of directors and through them, to the shareholders. If he isn't take the company in a direction they like (usually, hurting the company's financial future -- or present, in the case of more short-sighted investors), he can be replaced with relative ease. Shareholders, like voters in a more democratic state, can of course be rather fickle, though wild swings are generally less common due to the fact that in the State (and in most modern corporations) shares, or at least their proxies, are generally concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of extremely wealthy individuals, corporations, or various investment funds. These facts are another reason I find the sudden rise of Tibus Heth hard to swallow, since the corporate world doesn't quite work the way CCP would seem to portray it.
All right, so now that we have that long lesson in how corporations work out of the way, you're probably saying, "well, that's all well and good, but I don't understand what that has to do with anything in the State." Well, to be fair, most of this is all happening on a level far above any of the heads of us capsuleers; the amount of money and influence being thrown around at that level is probably fair more than most alliances have to deal with. What you should get out of this, however, is the fact that there are checks and balances on corporate power at some level; if a CEO is destroying his company, or a corporation's stock is plummeting because of repeated failures, you'll see that CEO ousted, you'll see that company's stock bought up by some opportunistic corporate raider, or something. The one thing you won't likely see is them sitting there on their hands and hoping things change for the better soon, however.
All right, I think that's enough for now; next time, I'll be talking about the "normal folks" of the Caldari State, Joe and Jane Sixpack, the corporate workers, and how the corporations keep their control over the populace. That is really where I think the most interesting parts of our discussion went, and I think probably the most enlightening parts for Yoshio and Kai. In the meantime, feel free to let me know what you think, even if it's "Jesus Christ, woman, why don't you just shut up!" :)
I think that one of the problems we have here is that we try as players to construct a cohesive view of our pet races, but not even the dev team themselves have managed to do so. I suspect that different people have had different ideas about 'what it means to be Caldari' at CCP over the years, but they've always been quite laissez-faire about this stuff, and they shrug and assume there's room for all sorts of ideas under the broad umbrellas of race and bloodline. Not least because of the population sizes involved. That's probably justified in that given multiple planets with ~10 billion inhabitants, every kind of human behaviour and every kind of human construct imaginable probably exists or has existed or will exist somewhere.
I think I see much the same things that you do in terms of conceptualising much of the Caldari State - I am at least a fan of Gibson and I see the echoes of his stuff in the State and across Eve as a whole. Ditto Bladerunner. That's the not the whole picture, that's not all of the State encapsulated, even if it does encompass a great proportion of it.
The reason I say that is that I also immediately think of _corporatism_ and the Italian model of fascism when I read about the State. The echoes and imagery are there to support that as well as the Gibson/Shadowrun/Bladerunner concept of the State run by powerful megacorps.
Can both views be true? Well, current CCP thinking seems to be leaning towards the fascist model to make factional warfare happen. Perhaps the nature of the Caldari State has been cyclical to reflect the needs of the time. Perhaps it was more tightly controlled and fascist in nature during the original war with the Gallente, and we have just come in at the tail end of a relatively liberal phase that has existed throughout the uneasy peace. Now that has to change, and the warmongers have the upper hand. (Even if it is happening too quickly - but hey, it's better than stuff just being plopped into the game like the Titans were :/ )
The Achur always remain a bit of an unknown quantity. Their philosophy seems to be at odds with the wider view of the State. Are there other distinct ethnic groups in the state that we don't know about yet? Perhaps the whole thing is far more complicated than just assuming that everything lies in the hands of the corporations. Maybe some of these corporations are really just names for completely different sorts of entities . Who knows?
The trouble is, I don't think even the guys at CCP know to be honest. I think they never really pinned anything down - deliberately - to allow them to do whatever they liked in the future and to allow plenty of leeway for their creative types. I suspect that the most background they have is just some numbers on a spreadsheet and the original brainstorming ideas from the game's inception.
We saw all this detail in the object descriptions and the complex web of corporate interactions and assumed that Eve was deep. What if half of that stuff was randomly generated like the map was? What if the planetary data was generated by an algorithm (like it was in Elite)and the names were made by a little name generator app that someone wrote in their lunchbreak?
The game is complicated to play (though much easier to break into than it used to be now that you're spoonfed so much) but maybe the assumption that the background to it is also complex and rich is faulty. It does feel like they are making it up as they go along, but maybe I'm just being a little too critical there. Either way, in my opinion, the foundations for RP and writing Eve-related material have always been built on shifting sands. Broad scope, lots of potential, nice views, but a sad lack of concrete.
Sadly, I think you are right, Wanoah. That does make it incredibly frustrating to try and RP, and it really doesn't seem like CCP cares about creating a coherent narrative then.
I'm not sure that they _don't care_ as much as they are simply too busy making things happen to move the game forward to zoom out and see the bigger picture. I could be doing them a disservice, and they could have a nicely compiled encyclopaedia for the creative team to refer to.