Reply #14: Interesting

[HFishbine]

What an interesting idea. You don't say how the middle class is to be dehydrated (and I have to wonder, doesn't the cartel need their labor?). Regardless, there is a small but emerging trend to allow private corporations to own aquifers. Maybe the cartel has so polluted public water supplies that it now is in a position to use its privately owned water as weapon...

- Should the Cartel be liberal or conservative on personal issues such as sex and abortion?

In your future world, what best advances their intertests? Do they need more workers (and therefore would push an agenda that would increase birthrates) or is the population putting a strain on their resources? Thier "morality" can be predicted by thier objectives.

- Should air be private or still public?

For travel or for breathing? See the water scenario above.

- Should there be any libertarian think-tanks (Ayn Rand Institute, Cato, whatever) providing ideological justification for the Cartel?

Again, what meets their goals? Do they want a society free from almost all government; or are they better served by some other political philosophy?

- Should there still be any art?

Only as it serves the interests of the cartel.

- What length should be the usual workweek - 60 hours? 70? 80? Anything else?

What serves the cartel. I can imagine a scenario where maybe a 10-hour week is in order, or maybe a total welfare state.

- Is it important to have all 15 Cartel corporations identified in name and industry (i.e. software, construction, automobiles, etc.)? If so, then what should they be?

- Digestibles (food)
- ingestibles (alcohol, drugs)
- physiological necessities (air and water)
- command and control (software, finance, etc.)
- security (police, militray, survielence, etc.)
- Housing and storage (homes, apartments, reservations, jails)
- Transportation/logistics/distribution

More I'm sure, but just a few ideas.

- Should there finally be a revolution against the Cartel? If so, then what should it create - a democracy? a communist tyranny? a second Cartel?

Democracy, of course.

- Should the Cartel use 1984 and Animal Farm as anti-communist propaganda?

What is a threat to them? Communism or democracy.

I always enjoy these kinds of stories when they are grounded in some sort of plausable relaity. You might pick up a copy of "When Corporations Rule the World" (nonfiction) and see how this is already unfolding.