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History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes
Aug. 28th, 2026 10:34 pmAbsolutely fascinating essay in the Times about the East India Company, its effects on India, Britain, and the United States, and parallels today, by historian William Dalrymple.
Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is set in a near-future world dominated not by multi-national, but quasi-national, corporations, which not only do a profitable business but control substantial territory from their various "franchulates" -- a portmanteau of "franchise" and "consulate", as though a McDonald's had diplomatic immunity from regulation by the United States. But as Dalrymple points out, companies acting like nations and nations acting like companies isn't just a near-future phenomenon, or even a present-day phenomenon, but one going back at least 300 years, and we can learn useful lessons about the phenomenon by studying its past and present incarnations.
Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is set in a near-future world dominated not by multi-national, but quasi-national, corporations, which not only do a profitable business but control substantial territory from their various "franchulates" -- a portmanteau of "franchise" and "consulate", as though a McDonald's had diplomatic immunity from regulation by the United States. But as Dalrymple points out, companies acting like nations and nations acting like companies isn't just a near-future phenomenon, or even a present-day phenomenon, but one going back at least 300 years, and we can learn useful lessons about the phenomenon by studying its past and present incarnations.
