I am toying with an idea for a book about a world in which 50 megacorporations rule all. This leads naturally to the thought: what would such a world be like?

Clearly, companies would like their own authority over the temporal world. They feel severely hemmed in and constricted by governments, and probably believe they could do a better job themselves. The question is, could they?

There would be little social safety net in a corporate world. You would be left to fend for yourself if you were outside the lighted circle of the corporation. But if you were part of the corporate ecosystem, life might be better for you than it is now. No taxes — or lower ones, anyway. Free food and perks for being an esteemed member. Security that was top-notch, second to none. The best entertainment products in the world, courtesy of allied corporations. All given to you by a benevolent economic tyranny that only wants to make money in this sordid, little world.

Corporations would rule more efficiently than governments, and that’s both a liberating and a frightening thought. Do we really want efficient rule? Do we want our masters to be talented and strong, or a little slipshod so we have room to squirm?

In choosing its decisions, a corporate overseer would aim for stability and profit above all else. As we see in the modern world, with its stable, long-lasting oligopolies (Pepsi and Coke; Airbus and Boeing; Microsoft and Alphabet; and many others), order is often prioritized over profits, although those seem to magically come along too. Companies don’t really want competition. Or at least, not more than the minimum that is necessary to keep them on their toes. What they want is freedom from commodity pricing. When there are a hundred razor blade manufacturers, each making an identical product, the razor blade market tanks and all hundred suffer. When there are two main partners in an oligopoly then both can thrive. What’s so hard to understand about this?

The goal of the company is not only to secure order but to make a hefty profit, so cutting corners is acceptable as long as it doesn’t damage the reputation of the company too much. One of the consumers’ main protections is the need to protect reputation. Louis Vuitton makes damn fine handgear for the fashion-oriented market, and it’s not going to start selling products that rip because that would tear the floor under its market capitalization. Microsoft products got better with time, with the blue screen of death becoming a thing of the past. Ford and GM learned from their mistakes of the 1970s and made better-quality cars, putting the Pinto behind them. Corporations can learn. Of course, political governments can learn too, but at a much slower rate.

The MegaCorporate World would be an interesting place to live in. I think I personally would prefer to live in it. There wouldn’t be censorship over TV and movies, for one thing, and the offerings would be wild. I think what the corporations would do would be establish a neutral body to limit pollution and tragedy of the commons problems. They would set up advisory bodies to maintain prosperity for all. The important thing to realize is that people would survive in the new world order. It wouldn’t just be brutal Darwinian scheming for survival. As long as you could work, you might do quite well.