Henry Ford is said to have said that he had to pay his workers enough that they could afford to buy his cars. Today’s mega-corporations think differently. It’s all short term and all profit. No social contract.

My book skates it to the conclusion. Hopefuly it will help wake people up to the downside.

And yes to the next two questions:
Yes, it can be done differently. Business doesn’t have to behave this way. Some successful ones do not.
Yes, they don’t have to win. Democracy isn’t dead yet.

This book is part of our collective wake up call. Let’s get people talking …! http://www.2044thenovel.com

How typical of the rich (and the Bush family is rich) to think of limiting other people’s rights (including life) in order for the world to somehow be better (especially for them).

Those are very sick people and the public was never told before they voted.

Just like selling drugs…that’s modern corporatism.

“More importantly, this dystopia is less deliberate than that.”

I would think from context that you might have used a different word than deliberate – malicious perhaps. If you set out deliberately to maximize profits without regard to the ’spinoff’ negative consequences (predictable or otherwise) you are no less responsible than someone who proceeds to do intentional harm. I guess it shows that being immoral or amoral makes no difference when measured by outcome. Collateral damage and all that.

BTW, have you ever seen The Corporation, a documentary by Joel Bakan, Jennifer Abbot and Mark Achbar? It explores to some degree how quite often the directors of corps that do a lot of harm see themselves as just running a company in the best interests of their stockholders.

It’s interesting that John Brunner’s novels were mentioned, because I thought of them right away reading the description of 2044. There were actually four novels in the series.
Stand on Zanzibar was the best-known and I think it won a Hugo.
I liked The Shockwave Rider the best and thought it would have made a great premise for a TV series – Nicky Haflinger as a futuristic version of The Fugitive’s Richard Kimble.
The Sheep Look Up was also mentioned, but The Jagged Orbit was omitted.

What was great about these novels (written in the early seventies and set between about 1995-2010) was that they didn’t go too far into the future. I think this puts more of a burden on the author than something 500, 1,000, or 10,000 years from now, when technology could be presented as something indistinguishable from magic with no explanation of how it came to be. The Shockwave Rider for instance, was centered around the existence of something not too unlike the internet – though the real thing is much more advanced than Brunner anticipated. Not so much speculative but extrapolative fiction.

I’m looking forward to reading 2044 for that reason.

Though I’m thinking I blamed Bushco too much (can’t believe I am writing this) in that I have overlooked the horrifing momentum of military industrial complex even with the supposed progressives in power. Little accountability and transparency. Imperialism. Drone civilian deaths. Black ops and detention continues. Military bases and embassies absorbing taxpayer dollars. Evil inertia to stay in motion. Oy vey.

Savage and the RW hosts get supported by the left if anyone ever even hints at limiting their “free speech” (even though it is commercially sponsored speech). But if you say, “They can say it, but they don’t have to get paid to say it.” then it throws it back to media giant against the corporate sponsors paying the bill and they can’t be defended by crying, “Free speech!”