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Solar political science

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Thu, 2010-05-13 18:19

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Solar political science

Something I hope Sunward helps flesh out is the political systems of the Inner System. While states and nations are obsolete in EP, legal systems are more important than ever. How are laws actually produced? Hypercorps need legal spaces in order to function. While a corp could own an entire habitat and run everything in it, this is often uneconomical and it would still need to trade with other corps. This trade requires jointly agreed contracts and ways of enforcing them, usually using trusted third parties. It is not too hard to imagine libertarian/extropian solutions but if that was the case then the inner system would simply be a big bunch of extropians. Clearly they are more statist than that. It is not implausible that the initial space colonies used a derivative of current maritime law: habitats were registered with a parent nation, and followed its laws. Conflicts were handled by arbitration and international courts. Some corps used "flags of convenience nations" that didn't care to control what they did as long as they paid, others shopped around for nationalities with suitable law and taxation. Some nations were useful as legal forums in space: belonging to them made contracts, enforcement and arbitration easily manageable (and kept legal costs down), so many corps choose them for their legal properties. The Fall threatened this system. Many nations had effectively ceased to exist, leaving the corps registered there in a legal vacuum. Sure, in the chaos they could do whatever they wanted, but that was bad for business: business thrives when things are predictable, transparent and trust can develop. Declaring their habitats sovereign nations could certainly be done, but meant that now the corp was responsible for running their own legal system - the lack of trusted third parties would hurt it (would anybody try to settle a tort against Cognite in a Cognite-owned court? No, and hence nobody dealing with them would use their legal space) In some cases surviving governments may have been co-opted to create stable nations of convenience. I think the key to the Planetary Consortium is that it represents an attempt to create something like a sovereign nation with related legal space but without all the baggage of the old nations. It is more like an international organisation than a state, but one of the key functions is to act as a top-level provider of law and legal services. This is why the Morningstar Constellation is such a threat: they might be competing with the Consortium by having a newer and more streamlined legal system, enticing hypercorps to join them. Right now the Consortium has economy of scale, so the Constellation needs to really tempt corps to join their system. Have I missed something?

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Thu, 2010-05-13 18:47

TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture

Re: Solar political science

I think this is where the Shadowrun background of the lead developers comes in. The Planetary Consortium acts very much like the Corporate Court in SR and as such acts as the arbitration and international courts between corporations. Each Corporation flies under it's own colours and follows it's own rules (as if they were a country), but it's rules and regulations would be made known to the Planetary Consortium and thus other Corps (so that some semblance of law is maintained). I imagine the whole system plays out very similarly to Medieval Germany, with each corp acting like its own Medieval German State and the Planetary Consortium acting like the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages.

—

Jovian Motto: Your mind is original. Preserve it. Your body is a temple. Maintain it. Immortality is an illusion. Forget it.

Fri, 2010-05-14 02:20

Decivre

Re: Solar political science

TBRMInsanity wrote:
I think this is where the Shadowrun background of the lead developers comes in. The Planetary Consortium acts very much like the Corporate Court in SR and as such acts as the arbitration and international courts between corporations. Each Corporation flies under it's own colours and follows it's own rules (as if they were a country), but it's rules and regulations would be made known to the Planetary Consortium and thus other Corps (so that some semblance of law is maintained). I imagine the whole system plays out very similarly to Medieval Germany, with each corp acting like its own Medieval German State and the Planetary Consortium acting like the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages.

Essentially this. The hypercorps basically act as their own governmental entities, with the Consortium acting as their unified body... their "United Corporate Nations", so to speak. The PC only has authority on a voluntary level; it's validity is only present in habitats controlled by hypercorps who recognize them. Granted, in a world as vicious as Eclipse Phase, Those who refuse to recognize the rule of the Planetary Consortium may have... serious mishaps.... In fact, I think this is a general rule. Habitats likely act as independent governmental bodies in the vein of micro-nations. recognized sovereignties controlling multiple habitats may act somewhat as a larger nations, but each individual habitat is itself an independent province or state. So even if something were to happen to Liberty, each of the habitats of the Jovian Republic could survive autonomously until reconsolidation could occur.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Fri, 2010-05-14 06:45

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Solar political science

While having a Corporate Court is nice, it doesn't solve the basic problem: how to decide on appropriate criminal and civil law? Are laws decided by some body (civil law), or do they emerge from judge decisions in past cases (common law)? Should the court have a jury determining facts, two lay judges and a legal judge, or a binding vote from the people present? Are there advocates (prosecutors and defenders), or just a state (or private) provider of justice? Is the goal of law to maintain society, to provide justice or to maximize human happiness? Who is liable if an owned AI misbehaves? These issues clearly tie in with how polities are actually run. They could in principle be different in every habitat - Disco Volante may have a civil law system with politically appointed lay judges and laws originating from Brazil, Rockford may implement a version of US case law with some Sharia, Joe's Bar & Grill may have standardized open source AI judges weighing together the votes from a jury composed of forks of random citizens with the regulations of JoeCorp. Hypercorps could in principle decide on some combination and use it in their own subsidary habitats - Skinthetics may simply declare that Extropian anarchocapitalist law applies while Broome Services has an entire legal package based on old EU law that gets implemented by hired law enforcement/arbitration companies. But note that this kind of pluralism is also very costly. There was a reason Germany became very powerful once the small states merged. Nimbus has offices everywhere, and would be better off if many habitats had the same kind of laws (then they could just send one of their expert lawyers). So hypercorps would have an incentive to try to harmonize legal systems - it is economically effective. In many places no single hypercorp can call the shots, so this gives joint alliances and the Planetary Consortium a very important role. Another "trick" might be standards. Imagine something like ISO9000 for law (shudder): implementing polities promise to encode their laws, legal system and how it gets updated in a certain standard way. This gets certified by interplanetary legal certification firms, and polities with this kind of certificates become appealing to corps and people. In fact, this may be how the PC works! Some habs are "Planetary Consortium Certified" to function according to PC "best practices": they have legal, enforcement and political systems that meet PC standards, including some specific rules (no uncontrolled CMs) and general standards (citizens have a right to legal advice and representation, local decisions can be overruled by a PC court).

Quote:
So even if something were to happen to Liberty, each of the habitats of the Jovian Republic could survive autonomously until reconsolidation could occur.

I think this was what happened to many nation-states during the Fall. In our game setting Sweden ended up with a handful of surviving political representatives. After a while they congregated on Titan, formed a skeleton government, announced a general election among other survivors system-wide, became a proper parliament and cabinet and then, after a referendum, folded the few remaining state resources into the Titanian Commonwealth. The state of Sweden is currently in a kind of legal hibernation. The main exception is the King of Sweden, a former programmer on Luna who happens to be the closest surviving relative to the royal house and is backed by a bunch of conservative royalists. But his formal power is pretty homoeopathic. Most modern states could probably reconstitute themselves if there were enough people who cared. Autocracies and states held together by force would just splinter into whoever ended up with the guns and money. Corporations have a problem: they only exist as long as the legal constructions defining them exist, and this is why I suspect the hypercorps have been so keen on setting up a unified Planetary Consortitum.

—

Fri, 2010-05-14 07:53

Decivre

Re: Solar political science

Arenamontanus wrote:
While having a Corporate Court is nice, it doesn't solve the basic problem: how to decide on appropriate criminal and civil law? Are laws decided by some body (civil law), or do they emerge from judge decisions in past cases (common law)? Should the court have a jury determining facts, two lay judges and a legal judge, or a binding vote from the people present? Are there advocates (prosecutors and defenders), or just a state (or private) provider of justice? Is the goal of law to maintain society, to provide justice or to maximize human happiness? Who is liable if an owned AI misbehaves? These issues clearly tie in with how polities are actually run. They could in principle be different in every habitat - Disco Volante may have a civil law system with politically appointed lay judges and laws originating from Brazil, Rockford may implement a version of US case law with some Sharia, Joe's Bar & Grill may have standardized open source AI judges weighing together the votes from a jury composed of forks of random citizens with the regulations of JoeCorp. Hypercorps could in principle decide on some combination and use it in their own subsidary habitats - Skinthetics may simply declare that Extropian anarchocapitalist law applies while Broome Services has an entire legal package based on old EU law that gets implemented by hired law enforcement/arbitration companies. But note that this kind of pluralism is also very costly. There was a reason Germany became very powerful once the small states merged. Nimbus has offices everywhere, and would be better off if many habitats had the same kind of laws (then they could just send one of their expert lawyers). So hypercorps would have an incentive to try to harmonize legal systems - it is economically effective. In many places no single hypercorp can call the shots, so this gives joint alliances and the Planetary Consortium a very important role. Another "trick" might be standards. Imagine something like ISO9000 for law (shudder): implementing polities promise to encode their laws, legal system and how it gets updated in a certain standard way. This gets certified by interplanetary legal certification firms, and polities with this kind of certificates become appealing to corps and people. In fact, this may be how the PC works! Some habs are "Planetary Consortium Certified" to function according to PC "best practices": they have legal, enforcement and political systems that meet PC standards, including some specific rules (no uncontrolled CMs) and general standards (citizens have a right to legal advice and representation, local decisions can be overruled by a PC court).

This will still probably vary from habitat to habitat. I'd imagine that the majority of groups will use a mixture of both, but two major groups stick out to me that might use one or the other: Conservative groups: Not just bioconservatives, but anyone who sticks to classic standards will primarily utilize common law. This likely will include the hypercorps (who are likely trying to largely rebuild the Earthly social structure that they dominated, even in legal form), the bioconservatives and the Lunar-Lagrange Alliance (both of which are likely continuing to hold onto their Earthly ideals). Most notably in the hypercorps, common law has the advantage of perceived fairness; if a ruling occurs against a specific hypercorp, then it will be in the Consortium's best interest to rule similarly in future cases, lest the hypercorp bring up issues of bias in council. Autonomist groups: Because they are essentially utilizing new governmental structures, there is no precedent for them to fall to. As such, civil law will probably in their best interests. To that end, I'd imagine that courts in such places might be something more akin to a legal tribunal, where a group of judges act to peer-review proposed punishments and outcomes that can be volunteered by the prosecution, the defense, and anyone watching the proceedings.

Arenamontanus wrote:
I think this was what happened to many nation-states during the Fall. In our game setting Sweden ended up with a handful of surviving political representatives. After a while they congregated on Titan, formed a skeleton government, announced a general election among other survivors system-wide, became a proper parliament and cabinet and then, after a referendum, folded the few remaining state resources into the Titanian Commonwealth. The state of Sweden is currently in a kind of legal hibernation. The main exception is the King of Sweden, a former programmer on Luna who happens to be the closest surviving relative to the royal house and is backed by a bunch of conservative royalists. But his formal power is pretty homoeopathic. Most modern states could probably reconstitute themselves if there were enough people who cared. Autocracies and states held together by force would just splinter into whoever ended up with the guns and money. Corporations have a problem: they only exist as long as the legal constructions defining them exist, and this is why I suspect the hypercorps have been so keen on setting up a unified Planetary Consortitum.

Very true. For instance, I think that the Jovian Republic was largely set up to sustain the base of power that various conservative groups already had, ensuring that they didn't have to live in places that did not conform to their strict standards of living. Even the Lunar-Lagrange alliance seems somewhat like a "cryo-culture"... a social structure designed to freeze-frame human society as it was on Earth until such a time that humanity can return.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Fri, 2010-05-14 08:27

TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture

Re: Solar political science

When I look at the different political systems in play in EP I often thing of the Old West and the fact that while there was federal law (ie the Planetary Consortium), individual states (and often even individual towns within those states) had their own laws and regulations that they followed. Best practices were employed and while the more civilized centres had formal judges and legal systems, out laying areas would be run by mob law. On a side note, I created an interesting character (haven't had a chance to play him though). He is called Bwana Simba (Lord Lion) and he was a dictator in an African nation during the Fall. Because his nation couldn't afford a scum barge (and he was at war will all his neighbours during the Fall), he was one of a very small handful of survivors from his country (via uplinking). So the character lost everything and is now forced to live his new life trying to reclaim his past while avoiding his enemies (of which many survived).

—

Jovian Motto: Your mind is original. Preserve it. Your body is a temple. Maintain it. Immortality is an illusion. Forget it.

Fri, 2010-05-14 08:59

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Solar political science

Decivre wrote:
Conservative groups: Not just bioconservatives, but anyone who sticks to classic standards will primarily utilize common law.

I don't think that works. Any group with a base in European or Asian traditions would find a shift to common law a radical change. Most Swedes I know find it just as weird (and unjust) that UK and US court decisions are based on past cases rather than a clear statement from the government as US people find the Swedish practice of having two "lay" judges from opposing political parties and no jury. I would expect legal systems among traditionalists to retain whatever form the "parent" polity used, even if it is problematic. Radicals might instead see the chance of changing things.

Quote:
Autonomist groups: Because they are essentially utilizing new governmental structures, there is no precedent for them to fall to. As such, civil law will probably in their best interests. To that end, I'd imagine that courts in such places might be something more akin to a legal tribunal, where a group of judges act to peer-review proposed punishments and outcomes that can be volunteered by the prosecution, the defense, and anyone watching the proceedings.

But this isn't civil law, this a kind of common law. Note that there are no centrally codified laws.

Quote:
Even the Lunar-Lagrange alliance seems somewhat like a "cryo-culture"... a social structure designed to freeze-frame human society as it was on Earth until such a time that humanity can return.

I guess they simply had too many terrestrial government people there, making it too easy to restart a bunch of nation-states. In the rest of the system the nation-oriented people were fewer and had less organisation than hypercorps and other ideologies.

—

Fri, 2010-05-14 10:59

TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture

Re: Solar political science

I imagine that international law became the defacto common law after the Fall and then each hab tweaked these laws to fit there particular needs and culture.

—

Jovian Motto: Your mind is original. Preserve it. Your body is a temple. Maintain it. Immortality is an illusion. Forget it.

Fri, 2010-05-14 11:16

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Solar political science

TBRMInsanity wrote:
I imagine that international law became the defacto common law after the Fall and then each hab tweaked these laws to fit there particular needs and culture.

Sounds about right. The problem with international law is that it has rather little information about things like what is a crime or how to prosecute it (piracy and war crimes OK, but what about vandalism or jaywalking?) So my model is that most habs started with a national law system (sometimes just in name and actually rather company-run or customary) that obeyed the international law system. After the Fall they adjusted their laws, many in the inner system in a direction of greater similarity and compatibility with international law.

—

Fri, 2010-05-14 16:53

#10

TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture

Re: Solar political science

Arenamontanus wrote:
TBRMInsanity wrote:
I imagine that international law became the defacto common law after the Fall and then each hab tweaked these laws to fit there particular needs and culture.
Sounds about right. The problem with international law is that it has rather little information about things like what is a crime or how to prosecute it (piracy and war crimes OK, but what about vandalism or jaywalking?) So my model is that most habs started with a national law system (sometimes just in name and actually rather company-run or customary) that obeyed the international law system. After the Fall they adjusted their laws, many in the inner system in a direction of greater similarity and compatibility with international law.

I would think that since the Hypercorps have great influence in the Inner System that most of the habs there would have laws that were heavily influenced by the Planetary Consortium (It eludes to this in the write up for Mars and the Barsoonian resistance to Hypercorp control). Some habs (Scum barges come to mind) may have no laws at all except (if you don't hurt me then I won't hurt you). Rep bombing would keep people in check from pissing off too many of their neighbours.

—

Jovian Motto: Your mind is original. Preserve it. Your body is a temple. Maintain it. Immortality is an illusion. Forget it.

Sat, 2010-05-15 04:58

#11

nick012000 nick012000's picture

Re: Solar political science

IIRC, the corebook says Planetary Consortium is actually a representative democracy; the hypercorps wield their power behind the scenes of the dog-and-pony show of the government.

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+1 r-Rep , +1 @-rep

Sat, 2010-05-15 05:50

#12

Decivre

Re: Solar political science

nick012000 wrote:
IIRC, the corebook says Planetary Consortium is actually a representative democracy; the hypercorps wield their power behind the scenes of the dog-and-pony show of the government.

Actually, I think they do so semi-obviously. Chances are they have a set up similar to British Parliament; one group of representatives chosen by the citizens of the Consortium (the puppet power), and another group of representatives chosen by the hypercorps (the real power; the Consortium "Board of Directors"), whose numbers are based on how much power each hypercorp has (sort of like how the US House of Representatives is based on population, instead based on marketshare).

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sat, 2010-05-15 05:53

#13

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Solar political science

nick012000 wrote:
IIRC, the corebook says Planetary Consortium is actually a representative democracy; the hypercorps wield their power behind the scenes of the dog-and-pony show of the government.

Actually, what it says on page 56 is that habitats are an advisory democracy, not a representative democracy:

Quote:
To help reduce dissent, residents of settlements and habitats controlled by the Planetary Consortium as well as those controlled by hypercorps can vote on a wide variety of issues. The results of these votes, however, are only binding on issues that are not considered “matters of habitat survival,” “corporate policy,” or “security-related issues,” which effectively includes any issue related to the security, profits, and productivity of the hypercorps involved. Votes on these issues are used in a purely advisory fashion, meaning that they are utterly ignored when the resultof the vote is at odds with the hypercorps’ agendas. While residents of these settlements and habitats can vote about adding a new holiday to honor some important figure or the location and design of a new park, laws regulating indentures, habitat security, law-enforcement, or other important concerns remain under the control of the hypercorps. This does not mean, however, that the results of elections are completely disregarded. If more than two-thirds of the population strongly supports a particular issue, the Consortium or the hypercorp controlling the habitat usually finds ways to modify their current policies to address these concerns without harming their own interests. In contrast, if only a small number of residents are upset by certain policies, then these wishes are ignored and habitat security forces keep an eye out for possible civil disobedience or other forms of resistance.

Some habitats and corps are cooperatives, so they might have representative democracy or some form of shareholder democracy. The PC strikes me as a fairly but not completely open society. Citizens can usually criticize the system with relatively little fear, but the impact of the criticism is also minor. This gives it the usual problems of oligarchies: the self-serving interests of the incumbents on all levels tend to trump correcting errors, corruption and allowing innovation. An interesting issue is whether the *hypercorps* have greater or lesser ability to criticise the system than the citizens. On one hand they are stronger actors and their criticisms occur behind closed doors, but on the other hand they are involved in a complex web of politics that might not promote too much dissension. There are no doubt fractions among the corps in various regards, and if they are party-like then criticising the stupid policies of your allies is contraproductive. Hmm, it all makes me want to make a Consortium lobbyist character...

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Sat, 2010-05-15 08:34

#14

TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture

Re: Solar political science

If you ever get a chance to read Shadows of North America (SoNA), the write up for the political system for the Pueblo Corporate Council would make a good EP government. Basic model: A country is a corporation and its citizens are the corporation's shareholders. Citizens are free to buy as many shares in the country as they like (granted they live within the borders of the country more then 50% of the year), and the more shares in the country you have, the more votes you get when it comes to influencing government policy. The "CEO" of the country (ie the top share holder) has similar powers as the Queen of England does today (even though there is a president and council of directors that run the country from day to day).

—

Jovian Motto: Your mind is original. Preserve it. Your body is a temple. Maintain it. Immortality is an illusion. Forget it.

Sat, 2010-05-15 10:46

#15

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Solar political science

Im more of a sandbox GM, I like picking equivalents among working real world (or old world) examples and twist them, than to write whole new systems, departments & reactions. In a other scifi setting (homebrew), for a similar solar system agency & its law enforcement. We had a scaled up version of the Italian city republics "republic of Venice", but instead of guilds and noble families, the representatives where sent from member countries & habitat rulers (including some corporations). These representatives became the law deciding floor & "democratically elect" members of the higher authority branch levels. Instead of dominion & control over a geographic town it was regarding the Solar system (obviously). Republic of Venice had a state inquisition/law enforement agency to safeguard against threats & potential "minister/signore" dictators. (built in espionage civilwar). For a "modernized" scaled up version -We ripped the Gits " Public Security Sections 1-9" & Texas rangers. One of the "official" enforcements was to uphold public safety suppressing major disturbances; protection of life and property; most often against polluters causing accidental micro meteor threats (debree) & repair negligence. But this Agency probably had more "teeth" & power than PC.

—

[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/tc_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/exh_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/argo_userbar.jpg[/img] [i]"To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult."[/i] Plutarch

Tue, 2010-06-01 09:55

#16

standard_gravity standard_gravity's picture

Re: Solar political science

A bit late to the party, but one solution is that the PC is a bit like modern day EU. That is, legal powers are divided into two broad categories: those that are exclusively federal (PC level) and those that are local (habitat or hypercorp level). If this is the case, basic law of obligations (contract law and tort) may well be highly federalised as the PC is build on commerce. Criminal law (except for certain PC-wide offenses), public law, corporate law etc (as well as lower level regulations such as those concerning "pollution" in habs, health and safety, employment etc) will be on the individual hypercorp or hab level. My reading of the core book is that there must be some higher level binding decision making power ("competence") at PC level. Ex: nano-fabbers are illegal throughout the PC area of interest, hence this must be a federalised rule of law. At the same time, it is not a centralised system as individual habs clearly have their own legal peculiarities. Hence a federal system which mixes international law and supranational law seems likely.

—

[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/ext_userbar.jpg[/img] "People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes." - John Dee

Tue, 2010-06-01 09:48

#17

standard_gravity standard_gravity's picture

Re: Solar political science

Arenamontanus wrote:
Corporations have a problem: they only exist as long as the legal constructions defining them exist, and this is why I suspect the hypercorps have been so keen on setting up a unified Planetary Consortitum.

True, and not true. Limited liability corporations or similar legal constructs are in fact privileges granted by the state. So yes, these would not exist absent a coercive political power. However, people would still get together, pool resources etc to engage in commercial activities, viz. Extropian hypercorps. The libertarians would rely on private legal systems (which in my view must mean some form of common law) and private law enforcement and insurance companies.

Decivre wrote:
Autonomist groups: Because they are essentially utilizing new governmental structures, there is no precedent for them to fall to. As such, civil law will probably in their best interests.

In my view the autonomists are in fact using non-governmental structures. Hence, civil law is impossible as it relies on top-down law making. Common law is the way to go. Also see above re the Extropians. As an aside, the Jovians will most definitely use civil law. It’s a dictatorship, no? As such, they have no time for an independent judiciary developing the law incrementally. They want a centralised, French-style (thanks Napoleon!) legal system granting the government near total room to maneuver / make reforms.

—

Tue, 2010-06-01 17:35

#18

Decivre

Re: Solar political science

standard_gravity wrote:
True, and not true. Limited liability corporations or similar legal constructs are in fact privileges granted by the state. So yes, these would not exist absent a coercive political power. However, people would still get together, pool resources etc to engage in commercial activities, viz. Extropian hypercorps. The libertarians would rely on private legal systems (which in my view must mean some form of common law) and private law enforcement and insurance companies.

I somewhat disagree with this. With the collapse of a government, the corporation ceases to be a legal entity, but may theoretically try to function as a sovereign entity. This is likely the case with the hypercorps; each of them are independent legal entities themselves with sovereign power over their own habitats, while the Consortium itself acts as a social body and treaty organization. Effectively, the PC is more akin to the United Nations (if you are a fan of Shadowrun, then the Planetary Consortium is the Corporate Court) than a government in itself, while hypercorps are individual nations.

standard_gravity wrote:
In my view the autonomists are in fact using non-governmental structures. Hence, civil law is impossible as it relies on top-down law making. Common law is the way to go. Also see above re the Extropians. As an aside, the Jovians will most definitely use civil law. It’s a dictatorship, no? As such, they have no time for an independent judiciary developing the law incrementally. They want a centralised, French-style (thanks Napoleon!) legal system granting the government near total room to maneuver / make reforms.

Actually, the Jovian Republic is likely a Constitutional Republic heavily based on the United States framework, with a heavy dose of conservative values (hence the name "Republic"). As such, it probably uses a mixture of both civil and common law, just as we do here in the United States. I was probably incorrect in saying that they would use civil law though, but I also doubt they'd use common law either. People are probably held accountable to the one that they wronged, who is given freedom to decide their victimizer's fate. Groups only work together to apprehend a criminal, or to kill him if it is their victim's wishes. It might even require favors to get someone who wronged you. Such is the nature of a culture of people without any central governing body.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Thu, 2010-06-03 07:57

#19

standard_gravity standard_gravity's picture

Re: Solar political science

Decivre wrote:
I somewhat disagree with this. With the collapse of a government, the corporation ceases to be a legal entity, but may theoretically try to function as a sovereign entity. This is likely the case with the hypercorps; each of them are independent legal entities themselves with sovereign power over their own habitats, while the Consortium itself acts as a social body and treaty organization. Effectively, the PC is more akin to the United Nations (if you are a fan of Shadowrun, then the Planetary Consortium is the Corporate Court) than a government in itself, while hypercorps are individual nations.

Sure, the PC could be like the UN. But then the hypercorps are quite successful (it seems) at cooperating voluntarily and align policies. This is possible, although perhaps not likely, and I think it would be mroe cool if the PC had more formal clout to meddle in solar system politics. Hopefully Sunward will address this, then we can discuss whether we like it and/or change our games to our preferences. As for hypercorps, there seem to be some conceptual confusion. To me, if they are corporations, then they are corporations (however incorporated). If they are soverign entities, they are "corporations" only by name. Moreover, the fact that people get together and form entities to carry out commercial activities is in no way hingent on the state. To be more exact, this is a matter of (micro)economics, not law. The fact that governments _today_ grant limited liability status to certain corporations (and royal charter back in the day) should not cloud our thinking.

Decivre wrote:
Actually, the Jovian Republic is likely a Constitutional Republic heavily based on the United States framework, with a heavy dose of conservative values (hence the name "Republic"). As such, it probably uses a mixture of both civil and common law, just as we do here in the United States. I was probably incorrect in saying that they would use civil law though, but I also doubt they'd use common law either. People are probably held accountable to the one that they wronged, who is given freedom to decide their victimizer's fate. Groups only work together to apprehend a criminal, or to kill him if it is their victim's wishes. It might even require favors to get someone who wronged you. Such is the nature of a culture of people without any central governing body.

I agree on the Jovian / US connection. And perhaps when the core book speak about the Jovians as being backwards and totalitarian, perhaps this is by the standards of year 10 AF. And in 10 AF a US like system is all of that. I just thought of the junta as being more like USSR or something, but I may well have fallen prey to hypercorp propaganda ;) As for the common/civil law devide, I think it is very important to keep in mind that the very nature of common law is that is has developed absent the state. This is the core in the concept of common law. In Sweden, for example, we used to have a "common law" system before the government monopolised the use of force and the provision of legal arbitration (in non-commercial matters). That is, there were judges all over the country, close to the people, applying rules that were in fact customary rules rather than written law. And this is what I think would happen if you removed the state from the equation. What the rules will look like is less certain, but both procedural and substantive rules will vary greatly between different locations. In some @-habs you may well have a legal system as you explain, where victims decide how they want to be compensatied for wrongs commited against them (in most cases I suspect the question of liability etc will be adjudicated by a judge of some sort and the punishment/compensation will be subject to rules such as proportionality). In the remaining @-habs you will see a range of various systems, ranging from private courts and private law enforcement (this goes for the anarcho-capitalists for sure and probably for many others as it is an efficient and effective system) to total "Darwinistic" the-biggest-monkey-is-King system.

—

Thu, 2010-06-03 10:43

#20

Decivre

Re: Solar political science

standard_gravity wrote:
Sure, the PC could be like the UN. But then the hypercorps are quite successful (it seems) at cooperating voluntarily and align policies. This is possible, although perhaps not likely, and I think it would be mroe cool if the PC had more formal clout to meddle in solar system politics. Hopefully Sunward will address this, then we can discuss whether we like it and/or change our games to our preferences. As for hypercorps, there seem to be some conceptual confusion. To me, if they are corporations, then they are corporations (however incorporated). If they are soverign entities, they are "corporations" only by name. Moreover, the fact that people get together and form entities to carry out commercial activities is in no way hingent on the state. To be more exact, this is a matter of (micro)economics, not law. The fact that governments _today_ grant limited liability status to certain corporations (and royal charter back in the day) should not cloud our thinking.

Remember, the hypercorps aren't "corporations", but "hypercorporations". My guess is that hypercorporation is a synonym of sorts for the term "megacorporation", which was coined by Will Gibson for massive corporations with so much clout that they literally are beyond the control of any government... or are governments unto themselves. An example of this can be seen in the megacorporations of Shadowrun. In the case of EP, I think that a hypercorporation is a corporation that has gained legal sovereignty, and has the legal authority to define itself as a corporation. Even though it is a government, it still has all the aspects that you'd expect of a corporation: shares, shareholders, board of directors, CEOs, and all that jazz. A good historical example of this might be the VOC (the Dutch East India Company). Despite the fact that they were a corporation formed in the Netherlands, they actually had many privileges normally only held by countries: they could declare wars and treaties, owned their own colonies independent of the Netherlands, and even coined their own currency.

standard_gravity wrote:
I agree on the Jovian / US connection. And perhaps when the core book speak about the Jovians as being backwards and totalitarian, perhaps this is by the standards of year 10 AF. And in 10 AF a US like system is all of that. I just thought of the junta as being more like USSR or something, but I may well have fallen prey to hypercorp propaganda ;) As for the common/civil law devide, I think it is very important to keep in mind that the very nature of common law is that is has developed absent the state. This is the core in the concept of common law. In Sweden, for example, we used to have a "common law" system before the government monopolised the use of force and the provision of legal arbitration (in non-commercial matters). That is, there were judges all over the country, close to the people, applying rules that were in fact customary rules rather than written law. And this is what I think would happen if you removed the state from the equation. What the rules will look like is less certain, but both procedural and substantive rules will vary greatly between different locations. In some @-habs you may well have a legal system as you explain, where victims decide how they want to be compensatied for wrongs commited against them (in most cases I suspect the question of liability etc will be adjudicated by a judge of some sort and the punishment/compensation will be subject to rules such as proportionality). In the remaining @-habs you will see a range of various systems, ranging from private courts and private law enforcement (this goes for the anarcho-capitalists for sure and probably for many others as it is an efficient and effective system) to total "Darwinistic" the-biggest-monkey-is-King system.

Admittedly, anarchist habitats are the most likely to not have a consistent structure of law. It is very possible that every habitat will have its own legal system, independent of the systems that other habitats might use. Some might even have no legal system at all, instead resorting to a "wild west" government where might makes right.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Thu, 2010-06-03 11:18

#21

TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture

Re: Solar political science

Decivre wrote:
Admittedly, anarchist habitats are the most likely to not have a consistent structure of law. It is very possible that every habitat will have its own legal system, independent of the systems that other habitats might use. Some might even have no legal system at all, instead resorting to a "wild west" government where might makes right.

The book alludes to this when talking about scum barges, and OORT cloud habs.

—

Jovian Motto: Your mind is original. Preserve it. Your body is a temple. Maintain it. Immortality is an illusion. Forget it.

Thu, 2010-06-03 16:28

#22

standard_gravity standard_gravity's picture

Re: Solar political science

Decivre wrote:
Remember, the hypercorps aren't "corporations", but "hypercorporations". My guess is that hypercorporation is a synonym of sorts for the term "megacorporation", which was coined by Will Gibson for massive corporations with so much clout that they literally are beyond the control of any government... or are governments unto themselves. An example of this can be seen in the megacorporations of Shadowrun. In the case of EP, I think that a hypercorporation is a corporation that has gained legal sovereignty, and has the legal authority to define itself as a corporation. Even though it is a government, it still has all the aspects that you'd expect of a corporation: shares, shareholders, board of directors, CEOs, and all that jazz.

I dig this, and it's cool - classic cyberpunk in a hard sci-fi setting! But as there are no countries any more, nor any states (perhaps with the exception of the Junta) I'm not sure the hypercorps are sovereign in a political science kind of way? Perhaps it is more that they are sovereign in the sense that they have absolute freedom of contract and absolute property rights (both being impossible to have as long as one is subjected to a coercive political power such as a government). I may be splitting hairs here, apologies! As for hypercorps having rules and such in their habs, I think of this as an extension of what we see today in a shopping mall, for example. The company running the mall has rules and security guard enforcing these rules.

—

Thu, 2010-06-03 20:24

#23

puke

Re: Solar political science

the way i understand it, hypercorps are supposed to be smaller than the CP2020 and Shadowrun style Gibsonian megacorps. i think the terms the book uses are "leaner and meaner" but the way they are described makes them sound just like old fashioned megacorps. Personally I like the take on corporate structure that was in Ioshi (one of the settings in Ex Machina by GoO). everything was dynamic and fluid, things were organized in projects. there were no corporations as such, but when multiple parties reached a coincidence of interest, they would colaborate to fund a project to meet those interests. it could be anything from building a highway or space elevator, to managing a water treatment system, to writing a piece of software. when a project ends, the resources are reallocated. no one works for a company per se, people just work on different projects as needed. I imagine hypercorps to be something like that. its not canonical, but i think it fits with the anarchist motif of the setting as well as the less well realized capatilist culture in the inner system. sort of open-source development meets unregulated comercialization.

Fri, 2010-06-04 00:12

#24

Decivre

Re: Solar political science

standard_gravity wrote:
I dig this, and it's cool - classic cyberpunk in a hard sci-fi setting! But as there are no countries any more, nor any states (perhaps with the exception of the Junta) I'm not sure the hypercorps are sovereign in a political science kind of way? Perhaps it is more that they are sovereign in the sense that they have absolute freedom of contract and absolute property rights (both being impossible to have as long as one is subjected to a coercive political power such as a government). I may be splitting hairs here, apologies! As for hypercorps having rules and such in their habs, I think of this as an extension of what we see today in a shopping mall, for example. The company running the mall has rules and security guard enforcing these rules.

Not quite. Megacorporations are generally portrayed as evil and negative in a cyberpunk setting. In Eclipse Phase, the hypercorps are not necessarily so... some skirt the line, and there are some that might be evil, but for the most part they run in gray more than they run in black. In fact, some hypercorporations are anarcho-capitalist... combining both the profiteering motivations of corporations and the community-oriented structure of anarchist habitats. To that end, I wasn't totally accurate if I implied that [i]all hypercorps[/i] are sovereign states. The largest hypercorps own their own habitats, and they act as sovereign entities unto themselves. However, hypercorps run the gamut in size just like corporations today... and can be anything from a massive conglomerate to a retirement fund. The largest majority are non-asset based entities... they may even only exist on the mesh, and all of the assets they do have may exist only on one person's inserts. Page 70 does a good job of really delving into what a hypercorp really is.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Fri, 2010-06-04 06:11

#25

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Solar political science

Funny enough, I think a hypercorp has more vested interest in following standardized or inter-system laws than most communities. If I'm riding on a space barge 5 or 10 AU out, and I'm happily stealing and transmitting intellectual property, what are you going to do? I've caused 50,000cr worth of damage - but it would cost you about 500,000cr to come out here, intercept me, bring me to court and so on. With the hypercorps, since they want to have access to all these markets, they have an interest in playing nice.

Fri, 2010-06-04 07:50

#26

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Solar political science

I am also a fan of Ioshi. Something our gaming group (which contained economists and law students) always made fun of when playing cyberpunk games was the silliness of the megacorporations. Rigid organisations with clear diseconomies of scale: they would often obviously be better off splitting into more nimble sub-units. Many of the real-world megacorps only work because of massive government protection (consider the sociology and economy of Japanese zaibatsus and Korean chaebols). In Eclipse Phase you can hire enormous amounts of brainpower and services *when needed* on a consultant or temp basis (like in Greg Bear's Queen of Angels/Slant novels, most people likely work for temp agencies). Factories, labs, storage space, computing power, black ops teams? Rent them as needed. If your needs and goals are evolving (and the world is changing fast) it makes sense to make your structure very fluid. Hypercorps are to megacorps what cloud computing is to big mainframes. This is also why I find it somewhat problematic to regard hypercorps as running government functions. As a hypercorp, you don't want to be encumbered with that! A competitor that doesn't have to do it will have an advantage over you. You want to divest those functions to a specialised organisation that does it, but *you* don't want to do it unless it is very profitable. Hence I think there are a lot of "govcorps" that specialise in being governments and competing in this market niche: they might be much less nimble than the "real" hypercorps, but they certainly show profit (and, being forced to aim a bit more long term due to their investments, they are also nice market stabilizers - Cognite might change unrecognisably overnight, but Extropia Corporation won't).

—

Fri, 2010-06-04 09:48

#27

Decivre

Re: Solar political science

Arenamontanus wrote:
This is also why I find it somewhat problematic to regard hypercorps as running government functions. As a hypercorp, you don't want to be encumbered with that! A competitor that doesn't have to do it will have an advantage over you. You want to divest those functions to a specialised organisation that does it, but *you* don't want to do it unless it is very profitable. Hence I think there are a lot of "govcorps" that specialise in being governments and competing in this market niche: they might be much less nimble than the "real" hypercorps, but they certainly show profit (and, being forced to aim a bit more long term due to their investments, they are also nice market stabilizers - Cognite might change unrecognisably overnight, but Extropia Corporation won't).

As the concepts of a state and corporation converge, overlap will simplify certain aspects of both. The government treasury, being a part of the corporation, now becomes another asset, and folds into standard corporate accounting. The legal system becomes part of the corporate guidelines, and the only real difference between a corporation today and a hypercorp then is that they have the authority to do far more to someone who breaks corporate rules in a hypercorp than they do now. Even handling citizens is less of an issue, so long as citizen and hypercorp employee are on and the same. This isn't to say that certain governmental functions won't be outsourced. The first one that comes to mind is military and security, for which mercenary groups like the Ultimates and hypercorps like Direct Action exist. In other cases, you might have a group of hypercorps working in unison to create and govern a habitat, if they independently lack the resources to do so. Groups of specialized hypercorps likely form larger hyperconglomerates, such as might be the case with Go-nin. This may not always be the case, however. I imagine that Cognite runs its "labitats" as sovereign locations under its own wing, for both management and security purposes. This choice would give them the highest degree of privacy for their ethically-questionable research and development.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Fri, 2010-06-04 12:15

#28

puke

Re: Solar political science

Arenamontanus wrote:
Hence I think there are a lot of "govcorps" that specialise in being governments and competing in this market niche: they might be much less nimble than the "real" hypercorps, but they certainly show profit (and, being forced to aim a bit more long term due to their investments, they are also nice market stabilizers - Cognite might change unrecognisably overnight, but Extropia Corporation won't).

i like where youre going, but i think of it slightly differently. again, my view is completely non canonical with what is in the book, but im not sure that nimble and flexable is the right idea. i think of them as small and extremely specialized. no one is running govcorp, but there are thousands of hypercorps that all make up the components of what a traditional modern government is, and people subscribe to the ones they want. you pick your healthcare provider. you pick your "security" provider. your nieghborhood association hires a hypercorp to maintain the moving sidewalks. hypercorps probably do exactly one specialized thing, and compete with other similar hypercorps for marketshare. instead of diversifying, they partner with other specialized hypercorps. when a service is no longer needed or is no longer profitable, that hypercorp disolves and the assets are gobbled up by new or existing corps. I'm stoked that Arenamontanus knows it, but Ioshi might be a bad example because few people have read it and its a little hard to grok. If people are familiar with Stross's "Singularity Sky", think of when the main protaganist shows up on the backwards commie hick planet. They keep insisting that he is a Citizen of the UN, and he keeps telling them that he is a private individual and his travel insurance is provided by the New Model Air Force or whatever. Think about what that suggests. every service privatized, people can pick and choose from what providers they like. Its like if there was no military and instead you got your passport from Blackwater. If something goes wrong when you're away from home, they promise to make it right within the terms of your contract. And extend that to everything from garbage reclimation to architectural standards and oversight comittees.

Fri, 2010-06-04 15:57

#29

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Solar political science

puke wrote:
you pick your healthcare provider. you pick your "security" provider. your nieghborhood association hires a hypercorp to maintain the moving sidewalks. hypercorps probably do exactly one specialized thing, and compete with other similar hypercorps for marketshare. instead of diversifying, they partner with other specialized hypercorps. when a service is no longer needed or is no longer profitable, that hypercorp disolves and the assets are gobbled up by new or existing corps.

I think this is how most anarchocapitalist habitats and probably many hypercapitalist ones too function. However, while I find privately produced law companies intellectually very fun, I have a suspicion that they are less effective than a habitat-wide law provider. This provider might be nothing but a rule provider, a trusted third party for negotiations and sovereign legal entity for extra-habitat legal issues. You select your security corp, but the contract between you and the security corp follows the legal format defined by the govcorp. Adjudication if you and the securitycorp have a disagreement occurs in some courtcorp that implements the legal framework set by the govcorp. The govcorp itself does practically nothing except being the formal grounding of law and contracts. This avoids situations where party A and party B have different security providers and have a falling out about a contract. A claims they are right thanks to their deal with securitycorp Alpha (which has a particular view on contract law) and B claims they are right thanks to securitycorp Beta (which has a different one). Now Alpha and Beta are in a pickle about which rules to apply. In the standard libertarian example they themselves have some contract for how to adjudicate this kind of conflict, but in a large solar system where people trade widely every securitycorp cannot have contract with every other. Hence the benefit of some kind of default contractual law.

—

Fri, 2010-06-04 18:51

#30

puke

Re: Solar political science

Arenamontanus wrote:
However, while I find privately produced law companies intellectually very fun, I have a suspicion that they are less effective than a habitat-wide law provider. This provider might be nothing but a rule provider, a trusted third party for negotiations and sovereign legal entity for extra-habitat legal issues. You select your security corp, but the contract between you and the security corp follows the legal format defined by the govcorp. Adjudication if you and the securitycorp have a disagreement occurs in some courtcorp that implements the legal framework set by the govcorp. The govcorp itself does practically nothing except being the formal grounding of law and contracts.

I'd tend to agree with that, though there is some precident for the privatized and competative model. as with anything, larger monopolistic providers are more efficient than smaller competing providers -- until theyre not. which is to say, until their competition is gone. Are you familiar with the Icelandic Free States? they operated under a similar system, and have been used as an example both for and against the extremes of anarcho-capitalism and privitization. this article does a fair job of presenting a couple sides of the issue: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/long1.html but like you say, thats just intellectual masturbation. entire habitatis selecting a single provider is very likely. I kind of assume most people here have played Shadowrun at one time or another, it would be like how Seattle has laws but contracts with LoneStar to enforce those laws. You can still hire private security, but actual law enforcement comes down to the state selected provider.