ALIEN - CONTRACTED: The Rand Doctrine

One of the hallmarks of the ALIEN/S universe is the low-tech aesthetic that makes this future setting look as if most technology basically stopped evolving in 1980. The official canon gives as a reason that some Luddite religious sect basically trashed everything in a weak imitation of Dune's Butlerian Jihad. I don't really care for that explanation. Instead I propose that the world of ALIEN/S split from our timeline much earlier. Since a lot of research and development that fuels today's contemporary technology from flatscreens to smartphones to developments in medicine and transportation came from government subsidized research, I propose an alternate world where this sort of subsidization simply stopped being practiced in the west, so that the technology we seen on screen in fictional 2122 or 2179 is indeed technology that in part stopped evolving in the 1980s. No retconning needed. 

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In the early 1980s the United States drastically remodeled the relationship between its government and the economy. These reforms became known as the Rand Doctrine, as they were inspired by libertarian philosopher Ayn Rand. The reforms were initiated and implemented by a circle of her followers who had made it into the presidential cabinet at the time. The Rand Doctrine's goal was to entirely remove all control and influence of the government on the market. In practice this meant the abolition of any and all regulatory agencies, but also the complete abandonment of any and all governmental subsidies. Following the Rand Doctrine, the government was to only fulfill a small handful of functions: policing, military, and the legal system. Everything else would become subject to private sector competition without any government interference

 

Government money would still flow towards military and police contractors. But that, and guaranteeing a well-oiled legal system, was the only function government in the U.S. was to fulfill form there on out. The Rand Doctrine radically remade the country. Staffed with believers in the revolutionary reforms, the federal government held fast to the reformist principles, even as poverty spread like wildfire. American corporations meanwhile reported record profits over even higher record profits. The Rand Doctrine's authors saw this as positive development. They had foreseen the changes they sought to be disruptive. Poverty might run wild, but it was not the role of government to change anything about this. Only the poor themselves could change their fate. Not their elected leaders. Eventually these things would change for the better for everyone. And if things did not improve, it was not the role of government to do anything about that.

 

The withdrawal of government from any and all research and development funding kneecapped scientific and technological advances in the west. The proponents of the reforms viewed this as beneficial. Only such advancements that the market organically produced were seen as worthy of pursuit. Government funded breakthroughs were tarnished by the stench of undue influence.

 

Soon after the Rand Doctrine was introduced in the United States, it was also adopted by other western, capitalist nations. The leaders of the United States coordinated with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization to incentivize other allied nations to adopt the doctrine as thoroughly as possible. The Soviet Union underwent its own reforms during the same time. The Soviet reforms made the vast communist nation state less oppressive. 

 

After the reforms had taken hold both in the West, making the capitalist world more cutthroat and unforgiving, and the changes to the Soviet system  made state communism more flexible, the Cold War began to enter its final phase.

 

The brutal realities created by the Rand Doctrine resulted in widespread unrest across the capitalist world. The leaders of the western nation-states blamed Soviet interference. In Central- and South America popular revolts overthrew right-wing Randian governments, seeking solidarity with the Soviet Union. NATO forces quickly intervened, violently quashing any insurrections. In Asia, Randian corporate forces clashed with socialist armies. These conflicts eventually culminated in World War III.

 

The war effectively ended the bipolar world order. But both state socialism as well as the Rand Doctrine survived the war in better shape than the nation-state empires that gave birth to them. The Soviet bloc rose from the ashes of war slightly less damaged, and in the first half of the twenty-first century transformed into a globe-spanning alliance of nation states. Western corporations managed to gain massive profits from war spending. New capitalist nation-state alliances emerged, and with them the Rand Doctrine stood strong.

 

The Rand Doctrine is still the leading political-economical paradigm in 2180. The past two centuries have changed the doctrine in some ways, but the fundamental dictum is still intact: the only role of government is to provide internal safety through police, external safety through a military, and interpersonal safety with an impartial legal system. Everything else must be provided by the private sector. Scientific and technological advancements have mostly been made in ways that directly benefit grand corporate bottom lines

 

This is the past that gave rise to the giant corporate conglomerates of Weyland-Yutani, Biostar, and Megatech.

 

What does the Rand Doctrine mean in 2180? Corporations as legal entities have individualist rights. As such, seeking profits as much as political influence is only limited by either other corporations' legal means - or by corporate warfare. Corporations can and will go to war with nation-state entities if doing so promises future revenue through access to resources, customers, or a labor force.

 

One of the reasons for corporate space settlement is to drain Earth of its poor, hungry, conflict-prone masses. Seeding off-world colonies is seen as a means to both bolster corporate prestige, but also as creating a future pressure valve to eventually remove superfluous people and create new markets That this process will take generations has been largely accepted by the ruling powers.

 

The Rand Doctrine now rules interstellar space.