COMPANIES, STATES AND SUBJECTION IN SCIENCE-FICTION STORIES

Abstract

Relationships between firms and state regulations are important in the history of SF. The
manner in which these relationships are represented is both a reflection of the fears and hopes
they raise and a political and value-laden way in which to think about the contemporary world.
The article distinguishes four main ways to present companies, as well as the forms of social
domination they produce and their relations with States. Narratives of “business despite the
State” exalt the entrepreneur as a creative subject fighting against bureaucratic or ideological
forms of domination. A different form of narratives of “company with the State” are stories
of synergy or collusion between the two institutions. When the story is one of the “company
against the State”, the companies are carrying out the functions of state authorities that no
longer function effectively. Their practices are radical, often harmful forms of domination of
their employees that result in the segregation of urban and social spaces and the enclosure
of the middle class. Finally, there are utopian stories of “alternative companies” that present
anarchist and democratic perspectives of business.