Neo-Anarchism and friends: Questions about the Sixth World

[Libertad]

I'm a politics nut, and I've noticed that Shadowrun seems to be a more politically-minded game in the sense of message and ideology.

Big corporations took over and screw the 99%, Neo-Anarchists and anti-establishment dudes are rebelling against the system, and metahumans and magicians demand rights and fight against government exploitation and control.

So I've got some questions about Shadowrun:

1. What is Neo-Anarchism? Is it like anarcho-capitalism, where corporations both big and small are free to compete without government interference; or is it like anarcho-collectivism, where the means of product is controlled by the producers? Or some other anarchist ideology? What group do the Berlin Anarchists fall into?

2. Are free market advocates pissed off that the Megacorps destroyed meaningful competition and now control the economy? Or are they happy, believing that the Megacorps got where are "by free market competition?"

3. Given the widespread social inequality and corporate violations of human rights, has Communism made a comeback? Are there any Communist countries remaining in the Sixth World? If so, what is their relationship to the Corporate Courts? How about Socialism?

4. It mentioned in the Sixth World Almanac that the Confederate American States were libertarian, yet resistant to change. Are they paleolibertarians, or rural libertarians with socially conservative leanings? What changes are they resisting?

5. It's mentioned in Seattle 2072 that Humanis Policlub goons sometimes wear hooded sheets when out committing hate crimes against metahumans. Did Humanis originate among the KKK or another white supremacist group? Wouldn't adopting Klan regalia be extremely counterproductive in their efforts to unite all of humanity against metahumans? It makes them look like living dinosaurs pining for the 1800s.

[Ancient History]

1. What is Neo-Anarchism? Is it like anarcho-capitalism, where corporations both big and small are free to compete without government interference; or is it like anarcho-collectivism, where the means of product is controlled by the producers? Or some other anarchist ideology? What group do the Berlin Anarchists fall into?

This was actually covered waaay back in the intro to Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America, and I don't remember all of the economic points. For about 95% of the books it boils down to teenage anarchism: no parents telling you what to do or how to think, no living under your parent's roof; there was only about one book with Neo-A organizations or movements that described the beliefs in any sort of detail, and I'm almost sure Rob Boyle wrote those himself.

2. Are free market advocates pissed off that the Megacorps destroyed meaningful competition and now control the economy? Or are they happy, believing that the Megacorps got where are "by free market competition?"

Depends on who is paying the free market advocates. Those working for the megas will say whatever is in the best interests of the corps, those who don't work for a megacorp or suck megacorporate cock probably argue megacorps are killing the free market. Most people recognize that the world is a default oligarchy with the Corporate Court.

3. Given the widespread social inequality and corporate violations of human rights, has Communism made a comeback? Are there any Communist countries remaining in the Sixth World? If so, what is their relationship to the Corporate Courts? How about Socialism?

"Mixed" capitalist/socialist economies never went away, and are pretty much the default. Pure socialist/communist economies only exist in a handful of communes, if at all. The Business Recognition Accords pretty much make that kind of shit hard to do, although for a while the Tirs were doing better than most.

4. It mentioned in the Sixth World Almanac that the Confederate American States were libertarian, yet resistant to change. Are they paleolibertarians, or rural libertarians with socially conservative leanings? What changes are they resisting?

The CAS as written in 6WA is a pile of steaming shit written on the fly, and is full of bullshit. I still have my original feedback notes on my original draft, and they wanted me to make the CAS "more racist" if you can believe that shit.

5. It's mentioned in Seattle 2072 that Humanis Policlub goons sometimes wear hooded sheets when out committing hate crimes against metahumans. Did Humanis originate among the KKK or another white supremacist group? Wouldn't adopting Klan regalia be extremely counterproductive in their efforts to unite all of humanity against metahumans? It makes them look like living dinosaurs pining for the 1800s.

That would be Steve Kenson, and I think more generally that would be several decades of Humanis Policlub art. Keep in mind the unsubtle concept that Humanis basically is the KKK circa-2050s to 2070s, but that it's not all "let's go hang us a darkey." For the majority of the members, it's like an Elks club that says "No Homers." They drink beer, play pool, and tell off-color jokes. So yeah, some of the hard-core violent people have explicit descent from the old Neo-Nazi gangs and probably do get off on wearing hoods and sheets.

[Captain_Karzak]

Big corporations took over and screw the 99%, Neo-Anarchists and anti-establishment dudes are rebelling against the system, and metahumans and magicians demand rights and fight against government exploitation and control.

I dunno if that's how I'd describe the transition of power from nation-states to megacorps.

I think Megcorps are what survived, and nation-states are the dinosaurs who are quickly dying out because they can't adapt to the new political climate.

What drove this change? I see four factors:

(1) Three VITAS epidemics in which national governments were almost completely useless in halting.

(2) The awakening and goblinization turning relatively homogenous electorates of homo-sapiens into a frothing cauldron of sub-species who has vastly different social needs and different population growth rates (Orks will take over the world).

(3) The crash of '22, which once again features most national governments being completely useless in stemming the body count.

(4) The rise of the matrix vastly reduces the importance of geographic proximity in determining who you interact with and share interests with. Via the matrix you can play cricket with anyone in the world instead of your neighbors, attend services in Mecca instead of your local mosque, etc. Matrix search engines bring search costs to an all-time low, so it really easy to find people from around the world who share your interests and ideologies instead of having to integrate with the society of people who live in the houses near yours.


So basically national governments have been useless and the ties that bond people together in nationhood have been severely attenuated by both magic and technology.

But people still have to work for a living.

Therefore these big corps are like the only thing that hold large, disparate groups of people together. You gotta spend like 8 hours a day working with other wageslaves from your corp. You gotta follow corp procedures, learn their processes, and associate productively with bunch of other people who you wouldn't ever hang out with if your time was your own. So basically the corp becomes the anchor of people's group identity in a way that nations once used to be.

Given this new role, it;s not surprising that Megacorps don't really behave very much like modern companies. They have their own citizens and their own armed forces and behave in a decidedly mercantalist fashion because their real goal is not to earn shit tons of money, but rather to be the sole author of metahuman destiny.

Only a tiny number of scientists, engineers, and executives actually create wealth. These people are developing the technologies that change what it means to be human - cerebral boosters, transgenic protiens, genetic optomization, direct neural interfaces, simense. If you have the budget, and talent, and knowledge to make this crap, you are basically revising the capabilities of the entire species.

So that's what they are competing to sell you. None of them really want you to buy their fucking toasters, they just want your cash so that they can be the first to market in developing Humanity 2.0

[Lago PARANOIA]

The whole thing actually would be pretty goddamned awesome if it weren't for the fact that the MegaCorps are pretty authoritarian and don't give a shit about human rights.

Of course, this does bring up the question of why they even want to have a Humanity 2.0. Even if it's to claim sole domination of the world, the state isn't going to last particularly long. You'll either have a Borg, Matrix, or Star Trek: All Datas outcome. None of which have any place for the society as it exists.

It's actually a pretty interesting Red Queen's Race situation. The race for transhumanism will inevitably spell their doom but dropping out of the race will spell their doom quicker.

[Libertad]

Seriously, they went with the "fuck my parents" style of anarchism? Is that what the Anarchist state of Berlin fought for, to dress in leather jackets and smash McDonald's windows? I guess it makes sense, in that most so-called anarchists are like this, but it would have been cool to have an Emma Goldman-styled anarchist figurehead. Someone with genuine zeal and dedication to an extreme cause.

Ancient History, unless it violates the non-disclosure agreement, can you tell me what original plans you had for the CAS write-up?

More questions:

6. What territories does the Japanese Imperial State occupy? I read that they took control of both Koreas, eastern Russia, San Francisco, and the Phillipines. What is the status of non-Japanese citizens in the JIS? Are they segregated off from the rest of society and forced into slave-like conditions, or do they have relatively equal rights? Has the JIS attempted to forcibly eliminate non-Japanese cultural identity, or did they allow the indigenous populations to keep their own languages and cultures?

7. What legal status do "non-standard" sapient entities have in the UCAS and CAS? Are centaurs, dragons, and spirits considered to have rights? I know that Dunkelzahn the dragon got elected President, but I wanted to know how "universal" this idea is.

8. In the Sixth World Almanac, it mentions that the UCAS and CAS have altered versions of the Constitution. In the history section, it mentions that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of granting more power to corporations. How significantly have the respective Constitutions been altered?

9. What rights do SINless people have? Also, are people born on Megacorp territory not considered a citizen of any country?

10. What relation does the United Nations and nation-states have with the Megacorps? Are Megacorps considered sovereign nations in and of themselves? Nations like Aztlan may be the result of nation-states dying out and getting replaced by megacorps.

[Captain_Karzak]

7. What legal status do "non-standard" sapient entities have in the UCAS and CAS? Are centaurs, dragons, and spirits considered to have rights? I know that Dunkelzahn the dragon got elected President, but I wanted to know how "universal" this idea is.

9. What rights do SINless people have? Also, are people born on Megacorp territory not considered a citizen of any country?

10. What relation does the United Nations and nation-states have with the Megacorps? Are Megacorps considered sovereign nations in and of themselves? Nations like Aztlan may be the result of nation-states dying out and getting replaced by megacorps.

[7]

The Runner's companion has a little blurb in the entry for meta-sapients species regarding their legal status.

Centaurs (p. 64) are accorded full citizenship by NAN, Greece, the Czech Republic, Amazonia, Yakut (who?), and Mongolia.

Naga (p. 65) can get SIN's in Amazonia, the Bangla Commonwealth, Burma, the Indian Union, Laos, Malaysia, Manchuria, the SSC, Sichuan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.

Pixies (p. 65) are eligible for SIN's in France, and the the government of Portland (part of Tig Tangaire?) will issue criminal SINS to pixies convicted of crimes. NeoNET is the only AAA who has pixie citizens (which means they issue a SIN).

The UN and the Corporate Court both recognize Dragons as sapient, which means that all member nations / corps must do the same. I'm not entirely sure what protections recognition of sapience grants, but presumably it means eligibility for citizenship.

[9]
p. 226 of the Anniversary edition core rulebook [SR-4a] mentions that if you don't have a SIN then you have "no rights to speak of and no data trail to prove that you exist."

As far as megacorps go, they issue their own SINs to their citizens. You can be a dual citizen like UCAS/Ares.

[10]

Megacorps [any corp that is AA or AAA] are by definition sovereign. Megacorps are governed by the Corporate Court which is composed of all the AAA's. Being elevated to AAA status means having a seat on the Corporate Court. As far as I know, Megacorps do not answer to the UN, although the CC and the UN probably have strong diplomatic channels to each other.

[Libertad]

Thanks for the answers!

11. So, someone give me an overview of the new UCAS political parties: Archconservatives, Technocrats, and New Century. How would you describe them?

12. Do the Democrats and Republicans still have a presence, or are they overshadowed by the aforementioned parties?

[Neurosis]

11. Here's all three parties in one sentence.

1) Archconservatives: "Like Republicans, only worse."
2) Technocrats: "Irrelevant and discredited since they got caught fixing an election back in the 2050s."
3) New Century: "A better future for mankind through the fusion of magic and technology...uh, worried yet?" (Possibly a secret front for the Illuminates of the New Dawn.)

12. The Democrats and Republicans are still quite relevant. IIRC Angela Colloton, current UCAS President, is a Republican.

[Libertad]

13. Do the megacorps face any significant opposition other than each other? I read in the Sixth World Almanac that the Japanese Emperor has significant public sentiment and organization in his country that the Japanese Corps need to compromise with him at times. Brazil's Dragon ruler has a brutal environmentalist agency that even the Corps are afraid of. Are there any other national leaders/organizations that can give the AAA Corps a run for their money?

[kzt]

The whole setting is insane if you look at it much. For example, the "key incident" that supposedly lead to the corps getting sovereign immunity was armed security guards using deadly force to protect nuclear power plant from being attacked by armed terrorists because naturally that was totally unacceptable. What planet did the game developer live on? It's totally acceptable to use deadly force to protect nuclear power plants and the NRC requires that you have armed guards who are told to use deadly force to keep out threats like armed terrorists.

(This is clearer in older version, SR4 tries to tapdance around it)

The entire early history of the setting depends on craziness like that.

[Libertad]

3. Given the widespread social inequality and corporate violations of human rights, has Communism made a comeback? Are there any Communist countries remaining in the Sixth World? If so, what is their relationship to the Corporate Courts? How about Socialism?

"Mixed" capitalist/socialist economies never went away, and are pretty much the default. Pure socialist/communist economies only exist in a handful of communes, if at all. The Business Recognition Accords pretty much make that kind of shit hard to do, although for a while the Tirs were doing better than most.

Wait, the elven nations were socialist or communist?

I can't see an elven monarchy in Tir Taingire getting along well with communist groups. Did a power struggle happen?

[TheFlatline]

3. Given the widespread social inequality and corporate violations of human rights, has Communism made a comeback? Are there any Communist countries remaining in the Sixth World? If so, what is their relationship to the Corporate Courts? How about Socialism?

"Mixed" capitalist/socialist economies never went away, and are pretty much the default. Pure socialist/communist economies only exist in a handful of communes, if at all. The Business Recognition Accords pretty much make that kind of shit hard to do, although for a while the Tirs were doing better than most.

Wait, the elven nations were socialist or communist?

I can't see an elven monarchy in Tir Taingire getting along well with communist groups. Did a power struggle happen?

If we're talking Stalin/Lenin Communism then it's easy to see the elven monarchs setting themselves up as the Politburo.

[Ancient History]

Ancient History, unless it violates the non-disclosure agreement, can you tell me what original plans you had for the CAS write-up?

I don't have an NDA, so I can do much better than that. Link

Re: the Tirs - I did not mean to imply they were communist, but the Tirs were two of the only nations that had not signed the Business Recognition Accords, and the megas had to act in those countries through local subsidiaries - of which it was mandated that the government had to be a minority shareholder. It was weird.

[Fuchs]

Weird was that the Megas even cared to act in those countries, instead of ignoring them.

[Ancient History]

Gotta get your underage elf pornstars from somewhere, I guess.

[Fuchs]

It's not as if there are no elves outside the Tirs.

[Ancient History]

Ja. I think Frank once said that there were as many elves in Seattle as in Tir na nOg, but what can I say - the early writers fapped to the elves. <shrug>

[Blade]

The neo-A ideology was pretty well described in one of the neo-A guidebok (either to North America or to Real Life), but I think it passed over the head of most people, including many writers, including some who wrote other parts of that book.

The ideology makes complete sense in a cyberpunk setting, and the "neo" in front of anarchist isn't just because it's the future. It's different from what most people today call "Anarchism" (which is often the left wing anarchism). And it's not about burning things down and starting free punk bands.

Neo-Anarchism is closer to Anarcho-capitalism (but still a little bit different). It's centered on the concept of the Pareto Efficiency. You reach this efficiency by making improvements that make someone better off without making someone else worse. Once no such improvement can be made, you've reached efficiency.

In order to reach this efficiency, your economy must meet the conditions of perfect competition. These are:
- All products are equal. Which means no patents, shared R&D, no advertising, no branding and so on.
- No barriers to entry. Any company can start in any business without any problem. This means no patents, no fees, no need to be a member of some association and so on.
- Many different suppliers and buyers so that if one buyer/supplier leaves, the market stays the same. This means no megacorporation domating a market, no oligopoly and so on.
- Perfect price information: buyers always know which suppliers offer the lowest price (and since products are all equal, this is the only thing that matters), and will buy from these suppliers.
- Mobility of money and workers.

As you can see, the megacorporation dominated economy is completely opposed to this. Which is why neo-anarchism makes sense: it fights against the corporations to get a world where people are more free but also better off.

Of course, I guess that even among the neo-A (just like among anarchists) only a few really understand the concepts. Some might know it as a creed but without understanding what it's about. And the rest just wants to burn things down.

[Lago PARANOIA]

In order to reach this efficiency, your economy must meet the conditions of perfect competition. These are:
- All products are equal. Which means no patents, shared R&D, no advertising, no branding and so on.
- No barriers to entry. Any company can start in any business without any problem. This means no patents, no fees, no need to be a member of some association and so on.
- Many different suppliers and buyers so that if one buyer/supplier leaves, the market stays the same. This means no megacorporation domating a market, no oligopoly and so on.

These are completely retarded ideas that would harm human welfare even more than the authoritarian detente that already exists in the 4th World. The first one in particular is so retarded that it makes the 2nd and 3rd platforms completely impossible to obtain. If this is supposed to be a 'no, fuck YOU, dad!' strawman then they succeeded pretty admirably. If it's supposed to be an nominally sympathetic organization that right-thinking real world players would support then it's completely laughable.

The last two are pretty laudable goals, however, once you strip out the whole 'products are identical' garbage. They're pretty much impossible to obtain, especially the fourth one, but putting in policies that promote these ideals is pretty damn good. But seriously, taken as a whole that platform is significantly less thought out than almost any other proposed economic system ever. I would seriously rather support the Libertarian Party than these whackos.

You know, I used to think that non-vulgar/paleo libertarians were just shysters, but I'm left with the scarier conclusion that what they spout is what they actually believe and it's not just a front to siphon more money from the Have-Nots. I mean, Jesus Christ, bitcoins are still chugging along after two catastrophic crashes.

[Username17]

The neo-A ideology was pretty well described in one of the neo-A guidebok (either to North America or to Real Life), but I think it passed over the head of most people, including many writers, including some who wrote other parts of that book.

It's in Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America. It was probably written by Sam Lewis under developer Tom Dowd in 1991.

It's like Libertardianism 2.0. Where Libertarians fap to free markets and non-coercion, the Neo-Anarchists actually claim that it's achievable with 21st century technology.

The essay is fleshed out, with like graphs and shit to show that they are double-super serious about how non-coercive free markets are the way to achieve Pareto-maximization, but I'm genuinely not sure if it's something we're supposed to take seriously because it is obviously fucking retarded. It's like Ron Paul crazy but even more so since they are arguing from Shadowrun's 2052 that natural monopolies have not happened in deregulated markets. Not that they won't happen in the stupid Neo-Anarchist Utopia future, but that already haven't happened. Um... Shadowrun's 2052 has Aztechnology in it, Natural Monopolies totally happened.

The second argument cited against an economic system of pure competition is that of natural monopolies. Effectively, natural monopolies use technologies that have a continuously declining marginal cost. The more produced, the lower the cost per unit. Thus, any producer able to get a jump on another will be able to outproduce its competitors and drive them out of business. The surviving company can then charge monopolistic prices—a coercive and non-Pareto optimal state.

Big government was supposed to be the instrument that would prevent the formation of such monopolies. In the 19th and 20th centuries, governments controlled power utilities, airlines, telephone companies, television networks, taxicabs, and a host of other so-called natural monopolies, all in the name of preserving Pareto optimality. But Pareto optimality was not achieved through government regulation; by the end of the 20th century, many of these natural monopolies were deregulated. The doomsayers denounced this development, but their fears never materialized. The advanced manufacturing techniques currently available prevent any industry or business from achieving a natural monopoly.

What. The. Fuck.

This isn't some Libertarian Utopia Future written by Heinlein when he went off his meds, this is fucking Shadowrun. Corporations have gotten so big and powerful off of natural monopoly that they have taken over entire countries. And not small bullshit countries either. Big ones. Like fucking Mexico.

The Neo-Anarchists are either written up as an incredibly subtle satire on modern Libertardians or they were written by a Ron Paul Randroid that actually has his head so far up his ass that it comes out his shoulders again. I've never been able to figure out which. But hey, Paul Hume is a raving Libertard, so probably the latter.

-Username17

[Blade]

These are completely retarded ideas that would harm human welfare even more than the authoritarian detente that already exists in the 4th World.

You know what? Today's micro-economic system is based on this ideal. Of course, no real-life market fill these conditions, but that's what the system should be, supposedly, aiming for.
Of course in practice, you've got oligopolies who make so much money thanks to that status that they can buy politicians (directly or indirectly) to keep the market in an imperfect competition state that benefits them more.

@Frank: I didn't remember that bit about there being no natural monopoly... (I guess that's my brain trying to make sense out of things). I agree that it completely defeats the point. Which is too bad because the rest could make sense.

[Username17]

@Frank: I didn't remember that bit about there being no natural monopoly... (I guess that's my brain trying to make sense out of things). I agree that it completely defeats the point. Which is too bad because the rest could make sense.

Mostly it comes down to "In a world where Spinrad starts as a billionaire and you don't, what kind of drugs do you have to be on to think that Pareto optimization is a good way of doing things?" Pareto optimization by definition means that you don't take anything away from the people who are already "haves". So if your position is that Megacorps shouldn't exist, you can't espouse Pareto optimization without being a mouth breathing sub-human.

Any functional anarchist creed for the 21st century would have to be about redress for the current unfair distribution of wealth front and center. Any circle jerking about fair competition resulting in an acceptable distribution of wealth is fucking insane when the start points are one Damien Knight and 3 billion SINless. It has to be about how no one has a right to the proceeds from the means of production from the beginning or it can't make any sense.

-Username17

[Blade]

Pareto optimization by definition means that you don't take anything away from the people who are already "haves". So if your position is that Megacorps shouldn't exist, you can't espouse Pareto optimization without being a mouth breathing sub-human.

I think you don't understand correctly the concept of a Pareto improvement: let's say I have a hundred bottles of beer and you have none. Taking some of my bottles to give them to you won't make me worse off, because I have more than I can drink anyway. But it will make you better off. That's why you can take something from the "have" to give the "have not". (In a Pareto-efficient economy, companies don't make any profit: the money they make just covers the costs.)

A market dominated by Megacorps is an oligopoly (or monopolies, depending on the scale you look at). By definition, an oligopoly is NOT pareto efficient. So getting rid of the megacorporations would help getting to pareto efficiency.

[Username17]

Pareto optimization by definition means that you don't take anything away from the people who are already "haves". So if your position is that Megacorps shouldn't exist, you can't espouse Pareto optimization without being a mouth breathing sub-human.

I think you don't understand correctly the concept of a Pareto improvement: let's say I have a hundred bottles of beer and you have none. Taking some of my bottles to give them to you won't make me worse off, because I have more than I can drink anyway. But it will make you better off. That's why you can take something from the "have" to give the "have not". (In a Pareto-efficient economy, companies don't make any profit: the money they make just covers the costs.)

A market dominated by Megacorps is an oligopoly (or monopolies, depending on the scale you look at). By definition, an oligopoly is NOT pareto efficient. So getting rid of the megacorporations would help getting to pareto efficiency.

That is not how the guy with one hundred beers sees it. He has a stock of beers and can trade his beers for other things, so losing a beer makes him worse off. He won't do it, and does not consider it to be Pareto Positive. In a Pareto-efficient economy, everyone makes a profit or breaks even, there is no taxation or redistribution from the haves to the have-nots.

The entire Pareto-optimality tirade would have made perfect sense (except for the rant about natural monopolies, that shit is just crazy-eyes), if it had been presented as the philosophy of Ares Macrotech! It's fucking perfect for those guys: everyone can do absolutely anything they want and the entire economy is arranged to make as many people as possible get as rich as possible as long as not one thing is done to take anything away from anyone without compensation. Everyone is free to do any competition and engage in any free contracts to do absolutely anything, so long as the Megacorps get to keep all their shit. That is the difference between Pareto-optimality and Utilitarian-optimality: the bottom line guaranty that rich people don't have to part with any of their wealth under any circumstances.

It made no sense as an anti-ruling-class tirade, because Pareto-efficiency is something that explicitly favors and indeed entrenches the position of anyone who has already "won". The ruling class cannot give up a single iota of wealth or power under a Pareto-efficient setup, because the compensation principle demands that they get at least one Nuyen for every Nuyen they lose. A Pareto-optimal economy cannot make Ares Macrotech poorer, it can only make them richer.

It's the bottom line of why the megacorps never really made any sense in their various villainous activities. Most of the initial authors actually supported philosophies whose logical conclusions were that the corporations were right. So they had to write in lame Captain Planet Villain motivations on top of that to portray them as wrong.

-Username17

[norms29]

Mostly it comes down to "In a world where Spinrad starts as a billionaire and you don't, what kind of drugs do you have to be on to think that Pareto optimization is a good way of doing things?" Pareto optimization by definition means that you don't take anything away from the people who are already "haves". So if your position is that Megacorps shouldn't exist, you can't espouse Pareto optimization without being a mouth breathing sub-human.

except that the pareto efficiency rant in the NA guide isn't espousing pareto effiecient policies at the moment, it's about pareto optimality being the natural result of non coercive deals, so stripping the megacorps of the ability to coerce people, (Which they explicitly advocate) is, just as you would hope, a major loss to the megacorps.

also, WTH did aztech have a natural monopoly on? I thought they started as a mining company.