I love SR, but there are giant plot holes in it's meta-verse.
(Clipped for space, but: giant corporations, nobody else, stagnant economy.)
I'd describe that as you reading the metaverse more literally than perhaps you should. There is more than just 'the megacorporations and the Barrens'; you have only to look at the four types of SINner Quality to understand that. However, let's break it down a bit more clearly.
Let's start with the gross domestic product of the planet - the value of all final goods and services produced by that country (or, if it's GCP instead of GDP, corporation). The World Bank estimates 2013 had it at just under 75 trillion, and as 'current' SR follows 'current day' pretty closely, just in nuyen instead of USD, we'll use that. The US and the EU each account for just about 17 trillion of that 75; China, with its 1.3 billion citizens, 'only' 9 trillion. Now, the Big 10 cut into that a lot - because they get to be considered independent of that amount, their GCP feeding into no country (the way, say, WalMart feeds into the US GDP), but as has been pointed out (in the SR3 Corporate Download, IIRC), while the Big Ten megacorporations outproduce most small countries, they are by no means the biggest individual economies in the world.
So in modern terms ... Mexico? Australia? Canada? Brazil? These are all 1.25-2.5 trillion dollar (nuyen) concerns in the modern world, Mexico being that 1.25 trillion GDP, and at #15 on the World Bank list. Aztechnology equals Aztlan, but on the books, they
are seperate, and though Aztlan is Mexico + Central America, there are still other non-Aztechnology corporations in the place, selling their goods and services to Aztlaner citizenry. Let's drop down a bit further - Philippines, Egypt, Finland, Greece. 250 billion in annual production. That's a decent medium-sized country,
but 250+ billion is what WalMart, the biggest corporation in the world, is doing
today. So the Big 10 are bigger than WalMart ... let's call 1.25 trillion nuyen a good average benchmark for the gross corporate product of the Big Ten. That's literally five times as big as WalMart - and equal to Mexico. It's also money that is part of no national GDP; that's pure company.
Do the math, subtract 12.5 trillion from 75 trillion, leaving 63.75 trillion. Now, we have AA multinationals, of which there are scores, if not hundreds. Their cash flow is part of no country either; let's say, for argument's sake, that there are 300 AAs, with an
average gross corporate product of ... 7% of the Big 10. Oh, there are lots who are bigger than that, but there are also lots who are smaller - because a billion-dollar company is still going to be in there punching, a tough AA to take over, while the 50-billion-dollar AA is gunning for a position at the Big Boy's Table. That's an average, by the way, of 87.5 billion dollars of products and services produced. With 300 AAs, that
still leaves 36.250 trillion nuyen for the rest of the world.
Sounds like a lot? It is and it isn't.
We need to go back to our numbers and crank in another set:
population. Current GDP-per-capita (per person in the world) is actually only $10,345 - product produced per person on the planet. That's income, if you like, but it applies to
everyone, whether 2-day-old infant, 30-year-old worker, or 60-year-old CEO. Take, oh, 0.3% of the world for each AAA (almost 22 million people as having corporate citizenship) and 10% of that - 0.03% - as being exclusive corporate citizens of each AA, and you have the following GDP per capita numbers:
| Country | GDP | Population | GDP per capita |
| World | $75 trillion | 7.25 billion | $10,345 |
| United States | $16,800,000,000,000 | 318,713,00 | $52,712 |
| China | $9,240,270,000,000 | 1,366,650,000 | $6,761 |
| Japan | $4,901,530,000,000 | 127,130,000 | $38.555 |
| UK | $2,522,261,000,000 | 63,489,000 | $39,728 |
| Germany | $3,634,823,000,000 | 80,781,000 | $44,996 |
| Brazil | $2,245,673,000,000 | 203,130,000 | $11,055 |
| Canada | $1,825,096,000,000 | 35,427,524 | $51,516 |
|
|
|
|
| Individual AAA | $1,250,000,000,000 | 21,750,000 | $57,471 |
| Individual AA | $87,500,000,000 | 2,175,000 | $40,230 |
| SR World Non-AAA/AA | $36,250,000,000,000 | 6,380,000,000 | $5,682 |
This is, understand, an
average. I don't earn $52,000 a year any more than Bill Gates does - just in the opposite direction. I also don't make only $10,000 a year - but according to this, all of China gets by on
less than that amount. Using the AAA and AA numbers, this means that while the people in the corporations are living the secure life like all of us in the USA, everyone
else has to scrape by on less than what the Chinese are getting.
That, of course, doesn't happen; there are
still the haves and the have-nots - 6.38 billion of 'em. They're the ones who are buying 'stuff', whether via corporations (the tens of thousands of A-rated nationals and under) or just at home. For every bum trying to live on 20¥/week - that's 1040¥ per year - there's someone with a wife and three kids who's pulling in 30,000¥ a year.
Shadowrun, its writers, its GMs, and shadowrunners - the IC writers of the books - tend to accentuate the differences between the top rollers and the gutter. Difference is where the story is. But though the middle class is receeding, they aren't completely gone - and when you get down to it, six-pluss billion lower-class National-SIN owners spending 50¥ is
still a big chunk of change.
The economy still exists. It is in no way flat, or stale. The Big Ten megacorporations are centrally planned, yes, but they're fighting each other for market share, fighting tough AAs, inventive A's, ain't-gonna-quit mom-and-pop stores. And while yes, in many places there is a certain level of 'I buy everything from Shiawase!!', that
really only kicks in at corporate HQ - and sometimes not even then, because people are people, and not everyone is a 'ONLY MY COMPANY'S PRODUCTS OR I DIE!!!' fanatic.
EDIT: Note that this is amount
produced, not
controlled. The US can be said to produce the above amount, and yet effectively
control the amount produced by itself, much of the EU, and a good third of China - not to mention lots of other nations. The US is currently still in the driver seat of the world economy, though this is changing. 'Control' does not mean 'produce'; 'control' also does not mean 'leaves everyone else starving on the side of the road'.
See also
my post in the thread Lusis quotes.
