Why so dismissive of Manpower?

It seems like in the later books whenever Manpower is brought up as a major player, capable of manipulating star nation's foreign policy, a tone of incredulity always enters into the conversation. One person will always say that there is no way a corporation, no matter how big, can engage in serious politicking. Yet within a few sentences of this incredulity there will be a line somewhere about how the Mesan government is a shell that exists primarily to promote corporate interests, and another sentence won't be too far away where it is mentioned that all the Mesan transtellars work with one another to promote their mutual goals. These two observations when coupled together makes the incredulity hard for me to believe. One does not need to believe in ancient conspiracies and sleeper agents to grasp the idea that Manpower is Mesa and vice versa. If the government of a star nation exists to serve the corporate interests, then why would it be hard for people to believe that a corporation would have the resources of a star nation?

GabrialSagan wrote:...If the government of a star nation exists to serve the corporate interests, then why would it be hard for people to believe that a corporation would have the resources of a star nation?

Corporations exist to make a profit. Manpower's dabbling in interstellar politics doesn't make economic sense; there's no apparent profit in their actions. That's where the incredulity comes into play. Whether it was Mesa acting on their behalf or Manpower acting directly, they weren't acting like a corporation.

Weird Harold wrote:Corporations exist to make a profit. Manpower's dabbling in interstellar politics doesn't make economic sense; there's no apparent profit in their actions.

Manpower's profit is made from the sale of genetic slaves. Manticore hurts their bottom line by disrupting their shipments, and pressuring their potential clients out of buying their goods. If Manticore and Haven were to cease enforcing the Cherwell Convention, then it would be a huge boon upswing for their profits. That seems like motive enough to me.

In OTL big corporations dabble in international politics all the time. A very obvious example is tax havens, why haven't governments the world over closed them? Wouldn't be anything to do with political donations and lobbying by google, apple, amazon and many more, would it?
How would it be differnt in interstellar politics and commerce?

Weird Harold wrote:

GabrialSagan wrote:...If the government of a star nation exists to serve the corporate interests, then why would it be hard for people to believe that a corporation would have the resources of a star nation?

Corporations exist to make a profit. Manpower's dabbling in interstellar politics doesn't make economic sense; there's no apparent profit in their actions. That's where the incredulity comes into play. Whether it was Mesa acting on their behalf or Manpower acting directly, they weren't acting like a corporation.

GabrialSagan wrote:Manpower's profit is made from the sale of genetic slaves. Manticore hurts their bottom line by disrupting their shipments, and pressuring their potential clients out of buying their goods. If Manticore and Haven were to cease enforcing the Cherwell Convention, then it would be a huge boon upswing for their profits. That seems like motive enough to me.

Just how would the events in Congo/Torch and/or in the Talbott Quadrant cause Manticore to stop enforcing the Cherwell Convention? How would they affect Haven at all?

GabrialSagan wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Corporations exist to make a profit. Manpower's dabbling in interstellar politics doesn't make economic sense; there's no apparent profit in their actions.

Manpower's profit is made from the sale of genetic slaves. Manticore hurts their bottom line by disrupting their shipments, and pressuring their potential clients out of buying their goods. If Manticore and Haven were to cease enforcing the Cherwell Convention, then it would be a huge boon upswing for their profits. That seems like motive enough to me.

Always remember that Manpower et al were specifically designed to be big evil corporations. They were created to promote a specific stereotype, that of the amoral slave trader and reckless genetic tinkerer; they were created with the ultimate goal of having someone like Manticore or Haven take them out and thus paving the way for something like the Renaissance Factor to say "You know, what Manpower did sure was evil, but they were not completely wrong. We can do this better, more humanely, for the advancement of all mankind".

GabrialSagan wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Corporations exist to make a profit. Manpower's dabbling in interstellar politics doesn't make economic sense; there's no apparent profit in their actions.

Manpower's profit is made from the sale of genetic slaves. Manticore hurts their bottom line by disrupting their shipments, and pressuring their potential clients out of buying their goods. If Manticore and Haven were to cease enforcing the Cherwell Convention, then it would be a huge boon upswing for their profits. That seems like motive enough to me.

The point was that Manpowers actions cost them money; both short & long term. The incredulity came from the fact that the actions was more in line with a starnation that had a specific political agenda - which didn't fit a transtellar corporation like Manpower.

It will more sense if you think about the Alignment as a religion and Manpower as one creation of an "order" wishing tht religion to accomplish it's goals.
The unenlightened are not meant to know. Other that the very top of the Alignment, the rest of humanity are little more than cattle or sheep to be used and to support the Alignment.

The employees and general ownership (shareholders) of Manpower don't have to understand the Plan or the ultimate goal of the Alignment, they just have to understand public projection of Manpower (or Jyssic or various other Alignment created entities). The population of Mesa intially had the general ideas and philosophy of Leonard Detweiler as part of the general ethos and thinking but while the current ethics and politics and social structure on Mesa is a carefully manipulated construct grown and supported over centuries, the actual control (by the Alignment) is carefully and deeply hidden. It's that whole Onion thing. Different knowlege and understanding at each layer and the layers are not to know that there are "deeper" ones. Actualy you have to be well into the Alignment before you even start to get an inkling that something like the Onion exists and even at that point it is still more or less like a religion.

Also think something like the "MASONS"- the conspiracy theory, really juicy complicated, manipulative and world dominating kind. Now have it's members slinking around in a glob of the Galaxy about 800LY across.

Very few people (relatively) have known about the Alighment up to the point where Ziwicki and Cachet get back from Mesa.

Ziwicki and Cachet (and others) have noticed that, for all the money genetic slavery and related business of Manpower and various other Mesian companies make, they don't really make that much sense in a business model. It is not "free" labor and it is actually quite expensive. It does, however, make certain sense as the cover for all the genetic manipulation and experimentation the Alignment has been doing. Its a cover. A massive (more than planetary sized) cover

This is very much the idea of hiding in plain sight, people don't see the scope and actual directions of the experimentation the Alignment is doing under the layers of Manpower etc.

There are many levels and layers (hence The Onion as one of the "internal" covers of the organization to deflectd exposure) and groups of initiates, acolytes, etc.

Very twisted religion dedicated to "improving" humanity and rubbing Beowulf's nose in the failure and fall of the Beowulf Code when the Alignment gets control. Who said a "religion" has to make sence to anyone but Belivers.