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[Seriphyn]

The awesome infodump regarding the Caldari financial system was fantastic in detailing that side of EVE economics, but I get the impression that people see the Caldari as holding a monopoly on megacorporations and that culture. Likely because Caldari megacorporations have straight-up, generalized names, whereas Gallente megacorporations have specialized names, even if their scope is equal. There is some areas to be exploded in Minmatar/Amarr, but I get the feeling that CCP's fictional focus on those two is less about business and economy.

Anyway, Gallentean megacorporations I feel have a different sort of objective/doctrine than Caldari ones. Since the State IS its megacorporations, Caldari firms have an interest in the overall welfare of the nation itself, politics and military and so on. Gallentean megacorporations, on the other hand, have their own agenda. CreoDron, recently, has been the/a leader in wormhole exploration. A high-tech robotics company seeking to acquire the latest and greatest technology while avoiding the eyes of the Federation government, and similar regulation. In fact, from Lost Stars, we see how Quafe tries to dodge the Federation's habit of moral accountability and ethical outrage. They are their own entity within a much larger picture, whereas in the State, these megas ARE the larger picture.

Bleh, sleepy for some reason, I keep deleting this post and trying again to detail my thoughts.

We know that the Gallenteans have PMCs too, such as those operated by Roden Shipyards, CreoDron and Temko. Again, their jobs might be different. They're not in it to hold onto political, sovereign territory like the Caldari megas, but purely to protect the physical assets of these megas and project their interests. The whole interplay is everyone seeking their own objectives; the democratically-elected legislature, the entrenched lobbyists, the varying cultures and memegroups (which again branches off massively and may connect to others), the President, the megacorporations, military cabals/factions (possibly), all against and within each other. Political groups v economic groups v social groups v military groups. This contrasts with the State, where the interplay is between megacorporations and not much else.

You do have scope for megacorporate RP with the Gallente, but even I would pick something like "Hyasyoda Corporation" over "Quafe Company", even if the former is larger and more ominous than the latter. Purely by name, and not details, the Caldari megas straight-up sound cooler.

Briefly exploring Minmatar/Amarr economics, it doesn't seem to be a "focal point" of their culture. Both the Gallente and Caldari put stock into the accumulation of wealth as one facet of their culture, whereas the Minmatar and Amarr do not care so much, instead their culture is based around their traditions. Instead, I was thinking that the rate of self-employment in the Amarr Empire and Minmatar Republic is much, MUCH higher than it is in the Federation and State, as people tend to not be subjects of megacorporations. In the State, citizens are overtly controlled and are property of megacorporations, and in the Federation, they are subtly influenced and indirectly controlled with the pretenses of "freedom of choice". Perhaps in the Empire/Republic, a city will instead have a lot of local businesses and shopkeepers, instead of ominous megacorporations dominating everyone's FOV (ie. Quafe, FedMart, ED etc.).

That said, these stall merchants in Dam-Torsad sell "the latest in faked Caille leather"; with the market for Gallentean goods created through their media industry, and the Caldari forcing their market in through capitalistic aggression, I'm sure you'll see ominious corporations controlling the more larger cities in Republic/Empire.

Interesting to note that the largest arms manufacturer in EVE is Imperial Armaments, who have stations everywhere. I'll be curious to know what exactly they make, and likely pump out countless, cheap-but-reliable arms to their local customers with their technology and culture in mind, ie. Just because it's an Amarr corp with Amarr stations, doesn't mean all they make is Amarr ships and weapons.

[Vikarion]

In the State, citizens are overtly controlled and are property of megacorporations, and in the Federation, they are subtly influenced and indirectly controlled with the pretenses of "freedom of choice".

This is directly untrue. Citizens are not the "property" of the megas, they are "assets". There is a big difference. Citizens can move between megas, as stated in such documents as the after-EA state of the cluster infodump, and remember that Megas are not the only companies in the State. There are, according to lore, thousands or millions of companies - the megas are just the largest and most powerful, often holding controlling interests in the smaller corporations. As far as overtly controlled, it appears from news articles that the State, or at least its corporations, have a healthy judicial system working to guarantee the rights of citizens and corporations - consider the article where Heth tried to arrest 3 Sansha sympathizers. If the State controlled citizens with no civil liberties, there would be no case to report on.

[Seriphyn]

Well, yes, but that's just a single word in my greater analysis. My point was is that State citizens are "citizen-employees" of one of the eight megas, who control 90% of everything in the State. I was contrasting that with the Federation, the idea that the owning of property is split between the government (Federal, district, planetary, sub-planetary, local), member states, individuals and, ironically enough, companies and megacorporations as well.

[orange]

You can have a Federal citizen just as beholden to his employer as any State citizen.

The day-to-day difference between someone who works in a CreoDron Factory station and a Wiyrkomi Factory station is likely insignificant.  Sure the CreoDron employee gets to vote for representatives at various levels, but get down far enough and they are carefully screened/selected by CreoDron.  The CreoDron employee shops at stores approved by CreoDron, lives in a hab run by a CreoDron subsidary, and banks with the CreoDron Credit Union.

Yes, planetside there may be a bit more "freedom of choice," but on the frontier, towns, cities, etc are going to all be enclaves of whatever corporation paid to build them and is extracting the resources.

[Bong-cha Jones]

Well, no, the Caldari Financial piece makes it clear that non-Caldari worlds enjoy more variety and competitive pricing than Caldari ones, except on the densely populated, multi-corp controlled Caldari worlds, where it's closest to the same for the upper-class.  Exceptions may exist, I'm sure, but aren't representative pretty much by definition.

[orange]

Worlds certainly, but I didn't say worlds.

I said towns, cities, and stations.

[Lyn Farel]

ooOOO nice infodump is nice

Briefly exploring Minmatar/Amarr economics, it doesn't seem to be a "focal point" of their culture. Both the Gallente and Caldari put stock into the accumulation of wealth as one facet of their culture, whereas the Minmatar and Amarr do not care so much, instead their culture is based around their traditions. Instead, I was thinking that the rate of self-employment in the Amarr Empire and Minmatar Republic is much, MUCH higher than it is in the Federation and State, as people tend to not be subjects of megacorporations. In the State, citizens are overtly controlled and are property of megacorporations, and in the Federation, they are subtly influenced and indirectly controlled with the pretenses of "freedom of choice". Perhaps in the Empire/Republic, a city will instead have a lot of local businesses and shopkeepers, instead of ominous megacorporations dominating everyone's FOV (ie. Quafe, FedMart, ED etc.).

That said, these stall merchants in Dam-Torsad sell "the latest in faked Caille leather"; with the market for Gallentean goods created through their media industry, and the Caldari forcing their market in through capitalistic aggression, I'm sure you'll see ominious corporations controlling the more larger cities in Republic/Empire.

Interesting to note that the largest arms manufacturer in EVE is Imperial Armaments, who have stations everywhere. I'll be curious to know what exactly they make, and likely pump out countless, cheap-but-reliable arms to their local customers with their technology and culture in mind, ie. Just because it's an Amarr corp with Amarr stations, doesn't mean all they make is Amarr ships and weapons.

I think the amarr economical/social structure is quite like the caldari one in some points, and totally different on the financial side :

- On the social/economical side we have megacorporations in the State controlling almost everything directly under their "jurisdiction". It works the same way with the Holders in the Empire, which hold most of the wealth and even more, the lands (and thus everything being on these lands). The people here work for the local Holder (small or big), Holder that is himself maybe working for a higher branch of his genealogy (for example a lower Holder being part of a bigger Holder that has indirect link with say, Sarum, and then working only half independantly of the Sarum might, who is the top Holder). It is very similar to the pyramidal structure of the state corporation (lower corps working at least partially for the megas, and the megas / holders controlling almost everything : workers, assets, land, tools, finances, etc).

- On the financial side, while the State has private independant banks as stated in the infodump (Modern Finances, etc), the Empire is a very nationalizing and centralized state (a little communist on that side), which means every corporation that is not privately owned by a Holder is ruled and owned by the Empire itself (Imperial Armaments, Imperial Shipment, Imperial this, Imperial that...), maybe with the exception of local commerces (the local fruit merchant or whatever traditionnal). While the State controls its economy through independant organisms like House of Records, etc, the Empire has a central governement with a single authority at its head (the Emperor and the Empire colossal administration), owning basically everything that is not owned by a Holder.

At least, that makes sense to me that way for the Empire.

For the Republic, it is quite shady. Not sure, but I think a lot of corporations are directly dependant of a Tribe in particular (Boundless Creations for example, if I am correct, is quite brutor, but I may be wrong). Not all though, and dependant only means it is controlled by natives of a tribe in particular, and that these natives will naturally be loyal to their tribe in question.

[Mithfindel]

Quafe does own several other companies (most notably Duvolle, Material Acquisition and Garoun Investment as well as a large part of Egonics), and might just be larger than the smaller megas. It also co-owns (possibly via Garoun Investment) CreoDron, Federal Freight and Impetus. Some of these corps are co-owned with Roden, so they may be allies.

For Amarr megacorps, you'd have the old "Imperial" corporations, which are megacorps and old monopolies on their own fields. (Notably Imperial Armaments, which is the "largest arms manufacturer" - implying that in the weapons field, it is larger than Kaalakiota.) For a more traditional "we do everything" megacorp, there's the Zoar-Ducia pair, which is about the size of smaller State megacorporations (as measured by amount of stations). And then, of course, Joint Harvesting is pretty huge.

For Minmatar, I can't see any clear megacorporate blocks (if you don't count the Angel Cartel). Interestingly, Kaalakiota has a stake in Native Freshfood (via Echelon Entertainment).

[Bong-cha Jones]

Worlds certainly, but I didn't say worlds.

I said towns, cities, and stations.

Mea culpa. I thought 'on the frontier, towns, cities etc' included the frontier itself.  I think it's worth noting, still, that for the Federation (for example) to approach the level of corporate control common in the State is an exception, while the State approaching the level of free choice for segments of it's population that other places possess is an exception.

On topic, I think Six Kin is probably the shadowy cabal that ends up approximating the power of a megacorp in the Republic.  Lots of power players and string pullers that exercise financial influence outside the governmental sphere.  Admittedly, I don't know much about them, but they came to mind.

[orange]

It should be remembered that at one time, the Caldari megacorporations were Federation corporations.  The concept of a corporation is arguably Gallente.  The first Caldari corporation, Isuuaya, is established more than 150 years after first contact between the Gallente & Caldari.

[Seriphyn]

See, now that's an interesting response and likely testament to Caldari cultural resistance that they took a Gallente concept, and instead of bending over and being consumed by Gallente culture, they used it to fight back, and to their magnificent advantage. It stated in the Caldari finance system article that the Caldari megas were being really problematic for everyone else, too. Would be interesting to see what a Federation would be like with Caldari economic dominance.

[Vieve]

Would be interesting to see what a Federation would be like with Caldari economic dominance.

:>

It'd probably look like a place the majority of my characters would feel very comfortable in.

[Seriphyn]

A problem with the in-game data (size, shares, share prices) is that it's not corresponding with PF data.

FedMart, for example, is the largest retail corporation in the world of EVE, and has operations everywhere. However, it is just "National" on corpdesc...same with Egonics, another transnational company, but is just national. Eifyr & Co, similarly, is just "local", despite being a big deal nationally.

[Saana]

The information the old corp pages had was calculated from stations and things like that. FedMart has stations only in the Federation, therefore it is national. Eifyr has presence in two systems, and therefore, has only local presence in space. Of course, in the fiction this doesn't stop them being a big deal. More a quirk in the station distribution.

[DrizzCat]

Eifyr has presence in two systems, and therefore, has only local presence in space. Of course, in the fiction this doesn't stop them being a big deal.

Could be a Case that they have Offices all over the place but don't out right own more stations than they need.

Why Own 30 Stations when all you need is a satilite office?