Privately-Owned Society: Difference between revisions

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* The town of Harrington in ''Polly'' is pretty much entirely run by the title character's aunt. She even controls the preacher's sermons.

* It's flat-out stated that Omni Consumer Products owns and operates the police department in ''[[RoboCop]]''. It isn't mentioned, but it's a safe assumption that most other public services are run by them, too.

 

 

* The Satellite in ''[[The Supernaturalist]]'' was constructed in the midst of an environmental crisis by the Myishi Corporation as a new living space, with land there being sold with restrictive conditions on use to set up a private city state on the Satellite.

* Some of L. Neil Smith's novels, particularily ''The Probability Broach''.

 

 

* This runs rampant in ''[[Shadowrun]]'', which is no surprise, given its cyberpunk background. Most metropolitan police services were replaced in the 2020s by a private contractor called Lone Star after nation-wide police strikes, and most emergency medical care is run by a private firm called DocWagon (most runners have a contract with them).

** This is even more true of the Pueblo nation, which actually ''is'' a corporation jointly owned by its citizens.

 

* ''[[Second Life]]'' could be viewed as a virtual version of this trope.

* Andrew Ryan's underwater Objectivist project called "Rapture" in ''[[BioShock (series)]]''. Unfortunately, a combination of Ryan being a [[Hypocrite]], his rival being a power-lusting [[Complete Monster]], and the discovery of an [[I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!|insanely addictive]] [[Psycho Serum]] [[Magic Genetics|gene splicing substance]] named ADAM brought down said project. Some interpret the game as a [[Deconstruction]] of Objectivism, but this is denied by [[Word of God]] (which states that the game's message is [[Humans Are Flawed]] and thus cannot live up to their ideals).

 

 

* Spoofed in ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode ''You Only Move Twice'', where Homer gets a job for the fictional [[Mega Corp]] Globex Corporation and the family moves to Cyprus Creek, a town owned and operated by Globex Corp. for its employees, with its own school, shopping centre and boardwalk amongst other things, and presumably all public services are run by the company. The spoof part is that the [[Benevolent Boss]] Homer works for, Hank Scorpio, is actually a [[James Bond]]-style supervillain, so Cyprus Creek also has its own private army good enough to take-on the United States military and a doomsday device apparently capable of destroying France (or Italy, but no-one ever chooses Italy over France). By the end of the episode, Scorpio has seized control of the East Coast and not only buys Homer the Denver Broncoes, he has the entire team shipped to his front door.

 

 

* This kind of society is promoted by adherents of at least two ideologies, [[Objectivism]] and right-libertarianism (also called Classical Liberalism). These ideologies have a continuum, though, as objectivists and right-libertarians do often vary somewhat on the level of government they believe will be optimal. Most Objectivists and moderate right-libertarians do think there should be a government, but it should be limited to providing at least the police, courts and military (thus not really fitting the trope). Some Objectivists and radical right-libertarians, known as '''Market Anarchists''' or '''Anarcho-Capitalists''', would replace even the law system with private, contractual equivalents such as private courts or arbitration, police or security agencies and militaries.

* Gaelic Ireland was like this for a millennium, between 650 and 1650, when it was conquered by the English. Though society was more based around a hierarchy of extended families, clans and tribal kingdoms of various sizes, rather than corporations in the modern sense. Admittedly, groups could adopt members and even merge together when it was in their interest. Also they were not based on territory, but overlapped in operations as businesses do.

[[Category:Older Than Print]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]