"Welcome To The Future, Where The Stars Belong To Corporations"

Remember when Star Trek TNG wanted us to believe that the economy of the future had transcended capitalism? In fact, as io9 concedes, the future of space belongs to the corporation. Just as the early colonies were chartered companies and companies like the East India Company ruled trade in the early modern period, so too it may be that space travel and exploitation will be the province of multinationals (or, should I say, multiplanetarys (sp?)).

The should not surprise us. “The limited liability corporation is the greatest single discovery of modern times... Even steam and electricity are far less important than the limited liability corporation, and they would be reduced to comparative impotence without it.” -- Nicholas Murray Butler

Curiously, however, science fiction almost never deals with a future in which corporations are the dominant players in space. And the few exceptions almost always turn the corporation into the evil antagonist. See, e.g., this list of the 15 most evil corporations in science fiction. Tellingly, there is no comparable list of the most beneficial SF corporations. Where are the SF versions of Ben & Jerry's (if super premium ice cream served up by sanctimonious left liberals is your idea of a "good" corporation)? Other than in Jerry Pournelle's Falkenberg series, where are the SF versions of Blackwater (if mercenary private military companies are your idea of a "good" coirporation)?

Why is there no SF whose author seems to have read and understood even so basic a work as Micklethwait and Wooldrige's The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea? If one had, s/he would know that "Companies were behind the slave trade, opium and imperialism, and the British East India Company ruled the subcontinent with its standing army of native troops, outmanning the British army two to one." And s/he would know that source material for an interstellar future ruled by corporations thus lies readily to hand. Better yet, s/he might come to realize that "for all the change companies have engendered over time, their force has been for an aggregate good."

So what's the problem? Is it that most SF writers are naive liberals, like Gene Roddenberry seems to have been?

If one looks closely at “Star Trek,” Gene Roddenberry’s United Nations-based concept of the “Federation” and the military life of his space travelers, one concludes that he adhered strongly to the fanciful ideas of utopian socialism. Like the socialists who preceded him, he favored large-scale blocks of control instead of small political bodies or individual autonomy. He rejected private property and market exchange, believing that man would “grow out” of those childish idiosyncrasies. He embraced a paternalistic view of the future that would inevitably lead to depleted resources, impoverishment, and economic stagnation, not a galaxy-hopping culture that found adventure at every turn. -- Gardner Goldsmith

Or were most SF writers too hungover (or baked) in college to get up in time for Econ 101? (Do people still say baked?)

Before actually coming up with a viable theory, however, I suppose I'll have to go brush up on Larry Ribstein's theories about why artists hate business. But I may be back.

Update: In response to some of the comments, bear in mind that I'm not saying there are no corporations in SF. I'm saying that where they appear, they are almost always the bad guys. So "CHOAM holdings" doesn't count. Neither do the corporations in films like "Alien, Outland, Rollerball (in that the world is run by utilities), and of course Avatar." Gawd help us Avatar doesn't count. Vile piece of shit.

Works like Charlie Stross' Clan Corporate series or Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League don't really count, because they're really about merchants -- not companies.