Lore: Second Corporate War: Banana-Republic
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Corporate War II: Banana-Republic
(approx. 1890–1970)
Core pattern: firms don’t need to be states; they can capture them.
- Sovereignty model: “a flag over the plantation, a contract over the government.”
- Primary terrain: land concessions, rail, ports, mines, oil fields, customs houses.
- Weapons: coups, private security, debt leverage, bribery, client regimes, “stabilization” interventions.
What makes it a corporate war
- The corporation is the strategic actor; the state becomes a proxy: Governments in resource-rich nations were often installed or toppled based on the needs of foreign corporations (e.g., United Fruit Company).
- Violence is deniable and outsourced: Use of contractors, militias, and “security” forces to suppress labor and protect assets, often with the tacit backing of the corporation’s home state.
- Victory = durable concession rights + compliant governance: The aim was a stable environment for extraction with minimal taxes or regulation.
End-state / Transition Driver
Mass politics, decolonization, and the rise of formal international institutions changed the legitimacy game. Capital shifted from direct territorial control to rules, finance, and supply chains.
Major Battles
The 1954 Guatemalan Coup
Regime Change as Customer Service
- Major Belligerents: United Fruit Company (via CIA/US State Dept) vs. President Jacobo Árbenz.
- Stakes / Terrain: Land reform policies that threatened uncultivated corporate holdings and the monopoly on transport infrastructure.
- What Happened: UFC lobbied the US government, framing land reform as “communism.” The CIA launched Operation PBSUCCESS to depose the democratically elected government.
- Outcome: Installation of a military dictatorship friendly to corporate interests; reversal of land reforms.
- Strategic Consequences: Perfected the playbook for corporate-state symbiosis, where private interests direct national intelligence agencies to secure foreign markets.
The Congo Crisis / Katanga Secession (1960)
Resource Secession
- Major Belligerents: Union Minière du Haut-Katanga vs. Patrice Lumumba / The Congolese State.
- Stakes / Terrain: The copper and uranium mines of the Katanga province.
- What Happened: When Congo gained independence, the mining corporation supported the secession of the mineral-rich Katanga province to avoid nationalization.
- Outcome: The assassination of Prime Minister Lumumba and years of civil war, ending with the mines remaining in Western corporate/financial orbits.
- Strategic Consequences: Demonstrated that corporations would fracture nations to protect their assets.
The Seven Sisters vs. OPEC (1960s–70s)
Cartel vs. Cartel
- Major Belligerents: The “Seven Sisters” Oil Majors vs. Oil Producing Nations.
- Stakes / Terrain: Control over global oil pricing and production quotas.
- What Happened: For decades, the Seven Sisters set prices unilaterally. Producer nations formed OPEC to reclaim sovereignty over their resources.
- Outcome: The 1973 Oil Crisis shifted pricing power from the corporate cartel to the state cartel.
- Strategic Consequences: Marked the beginning of the end for direct corporate resource sovereignty, pushing firms toward the “Neoliberal” model of controlling the supply chain rather than the wellhead.
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