The Origins of the Corporate State
-from the Secret History Website, author unknown:

     Like many disastyers, the, the crisi s that triggered the corporations' rise to  power can't be traced
to  a single cause, but to a seies  of events  happenning at the right time.

     The Earth's population had been growing rapidly throushout the  20th centruy, and into the 21st,
reaching a peak of nearly 8 billion, with most of that growth occuring in the third world.  A few years
of bad harvest brought on my changing weather patterns meant that famines became more and more
common , and more widespread.  The relief camps that because a common feature of the early 21st
century were a fertile breeding ground for the antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria that had arisen,
and plague swept across much of Africa and Asia.

     Those countries that had survived the droughts collapsed under the onslaught of plague, and the
refugees trying to escape it.  By the time it was over, the world's population had been halved..
Even those parts of the world that  had somehow escaped the worst effects were hit with severe
economic and social disruption.

    To survive, the corporations merged to form conglomerates, or zaibatsus.  To protect their interests
in the absence of any government help, they created their own security forces, and their own enclaves
for their workers, complete with their own codes of law.

     The people were more than willing to accept a few limitations on their personal freedom in exchange
for protection, and overburdenend governments  who were grateful for whatever help they could get,
granted sweeping powers to the corporations..  Unfortunately,for the governments, once order was
restored, they found that the corporations weren't willing to give up their new powers, and  the
governments found they were too weakenned to do anything about it.  The corporations allowed the
governments to continue to exist, but those who worked for a corporation, and those who sought its
protection, were expected to give their primary allegiance to the corporation.  Traditional governments
simply ceased to be relevant for the most part.


The Corporations




Locations:  Southeast Asia, Australia, Western North America, Europe


Locations: Asia, Africa,  Eastern Europe


Locations: North America,  Europe, Asia


Locations: Europe, Asia, Africa


Locations: South & Central  America, Africa