History Main / PrivatelyOwnedSociety

In TheFuture, AlternateHistory or simply somewhere apart from historical location, there exists a society where virtually everything is owned by the private sector, from [[LawEnforcementInc the]] [[SecretPolice police]] to the fire department to the [[ToxicInc national park service]], sometimes even to [[PrivateMilitaryContractors the military]] and [[KangarooCourt courts]]. Depending on the views of the author on UsefulNotes/{{Capitalism}}, this may be presented in a variety of lights.

* King Leopold II of Belgium owned what is now the [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny Democratic Republic of Congo]] and considered it a business investment (that's right, he ''personally owned'' a country well over twice the size of France/Texas). The DRC is ... [[CrapsackWorld not doing so well now]]. To be fair, it didn't exactly do well back then, either. About that bad or worse—in 1900 the population was roughly half that estimated for 1800, after only fifteen years into his private rule in the [[BlatantLies "Congo Free State."]] Every hundredth slave had [[AnArmAndALeg their hands cut off]] [[MakeAnExampleOfThem for an "example" of what happened if you stole from the mines]]. That, plus mercenary troops [[RapePillageAndBurn burned and killed whole villages]] who resisted, along with the brutal slave trade. It ended in 1910 when Anglo-Irish diplomat Roger Casement exposed these atrocities, which prompted Belgium to nationalize the colony, making this better, though still bad. Sir Roger was awarded a medal by the King (i.e. the British King George V-''not'' Leopold, obviously) for his work and ironically he later got hanged for treason after his leadership role in the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule of Ireland.

* In ''Film/AustinPowers: International Man of Mystery,'' Number Two explains to Dr. Evil [[spoiler: as he attempts to betray him and is [[YouHaveFailedMe is dropped into a furnace]] for his troubles ([[UnexplainedRecovery He gets better]])]] that [[MegaCorp Virtucon]] has become [[CutLexLuthorACheck more profitable than their villanious schemes]] and that there is no "world" to take over anymore. "It's only corporations."

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_Ireland Gaelic Ireland]] was like this for a millennium, between 650 and 1650, when it was conquered by the English. (Or at least, waves of whichever group-Saxons, Vikings, Normans-was ruling England at the time.) Though society was more based around a hierarchy of extended families, clans and tribal kingdoms of various sizes, rather than corporations in the modern sense. Admittedly, groups could adopt members and even merge together when it was in their interest. Also they were not based on territory, but overlapped in operations as businesses do.

* UsefulNotes/{{Objectivism}}, Anarcho-Capitalism, and Market Liberalism (aka "Libertarianism" in the USA) consider a society dominated by non-state actors to be ideal. Though the three agree that The Free Market Will Provide (Prosperity For All), that there should be little to no government regulation of society and people's behavior, and no public efforts to save the sick or needy, they squabble over the details. However, Anarcho-Capitalism is the only one to envision a society with ''no government whatsoever''-that being where the whole 'Anarcho' bit comes from-but instead absolutely everything being run by private owners.[[note]] The possibility that these non-state actors could end up governing society in a manner little different to that of a, well, regular government is why Anarcho-Capitalists and Social/Communitarian Anarchists are so irreconcilably opposed to one another[[/note]]. The Objectivists and Classical Liberals think this would be a terrible idea because they're sure that a functional society requires a military and legal/justice system.

** It's flat-out stated that Omni Consumer Products owns and operates the police department in ''Film/RoboCop1987''. It isn't mentioned, but it's a safe assumption that most other public services are run by them, too.
*** At one point, when Clarence Boddinker asks Dick Jones (OCP's vice-president) if OCP can get him access to military hardware with which to deal with Robocop, Jones replies, "We practically are the military."
** The plot of ''Film/RoboCop2'' revolves around OCP coming to the mayor to collect on a loan. Apparently, if the mayor doesn't pay up, the city of Detroit officially belongs to the company. While the mayor tries to appeal to the citizens, claiming that democracy will be gone, the chairman retorts that each citizen of the new Delta City will become an OCP shareholder and thus have a voice in the company.

* In ''Road to 56'', a mod for VideoGame/HeartsOfIron 4, the nation of Honduras can become one of two flavours of these. The first is where the country is taken over by the United Fruit Company and becomes the "Banana Empire". The other is that you can then overthrow the Fruit Company and turn the nation into the "Free Enterprise Zone" complete with the Black & Yellow ancap flag.

* Illium in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' is an independent Asari colony just outside the borders of Citadel Space. It has easy access to pretty much all the goods and services one finds in Citadel Space, but none of the laws and regulations. On the street you can hear people openly talking about large shipments of drugs, buying military weapons to join mercenary companies well known for their criminal activities, and buying stocks based on exploiting humanitarian disasters. All the advertisements from the loudspeakers either include health warnings or urgent recalls of products [[BlatantLies which of course never posed any danger to customers]] but need to be returned immediately. It's a WretchedHive, but it is clean and sophisticated. Interestingly, in the [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 third game]], Illium's massive wealth does have a good result: the planet's elite are able to raise and equip a staggeringly powerful mercenary army capable of fighting the Reapers off for weeks, which is something that only the turians could boast of doing. In contrast, Earth and Thessia were already on the ropes after only a few days of Reapers laying siege...

-> ''We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business.''

-->-- '''Arthur Jensen''', Film/{{Network}}

->''"I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone!' I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... '''RAPTURE'''. A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well."''
-->-- '''Andrew Ryan''', ''VideoGame/BioShock1''

In TheFuture, AlternateHistory or simply somewhere apart from historical location, there exists a society where virtually everything is owned by the private sector, from [[LawEnforcementInc the]] [[SecretPolice police]] to the fire department to the national park service, sometimes even to [[PrivateMilitaryContractors the military]] and [[KangarooCourt courts]]. Depending on the views of the author on UsefulNotes/{{Capitalism}}, this may be presented in a variety of lights.

* This runs rampant in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', which is no surprise, given its {{cyberpunk}} background. Most metropolitan police services were replaced in the 2020s by a private contractor called Lone Star after nation-wide police strikes, and most emergency medical care is run by a private firm called [=DocWagon=] (most runners have a contract with them).
** This is even more true of the Pueblo nation, which actually ''is'' a corporation jointly owned by its citizens.