Recently, in deciding a case involving an independent campaign expenditure, the Supreme Court asserted (i.e., went out of its way to declare) that a corporation is a "person" with regard to the First Amendment right of freedom of speech. The court had previously asserted that free speech equals mone. A corporation therefore has the same right as I do to contribute generously to the candidate of my choice. Following this line of thought (I won't call it reasoning) I imagine what would happen if we extrapolate the Court's assertions to their logical conclusion: corporations can run for office.
The year is 2060. A small law corporation in Los Angeles has filed as a candidate for the City Council. A lawsuit challenging the filing has reached the Supreme Court. Lawyers argue the case, both for and against the candidacy of the law firm. The Court hears the arguments and several months later issues its decision. By a 5 to 4 vote, the filing for office is upheld. The law firm campaigns vigorously and spends its own money for newspaper and TV ads. It wins the election by a slight majority of votes. The corporation is seated on the council and chooses a real human to act as a spokesman in council meetings.
In 2062, Union Oil and Gallo Wineries file for the US Senate Seat in California. It's an open seat, as the incumbent has decided to retire. Several human candidates also file, but their messages are drowned in the expensive advertising campaigns carried out by Union Oil and Gallo. In the California non-partisan primary election, the two corporations are the biggest vote-getters and are duly nominated. They face off in the fall electioin of that year. Gallo wins and becomes the Junior Senator from California. As in the case of the Los Angeles City Council, the corporation chooses a human representative to attend meetings in the Senate.
By 2068, the country is ready for the two political parties to choose corporations as their candidates. The conventions are quiet affairs, without much of the hoopla and demonstrations that characterized conventions forty or fifty years earlier. The candidates for each party were chosen in silent and secret auctions. It was rumored that General Electric Corporation bid and paid one hundred million dollars to be the Republican nominee. Exxon Mobile got the Democratic nomination for only eighty million. Exxon Mobile won the election. Immediately afterward, it was revealed that the two corporations had made plans to merge after the election. As a result, the new President, inaugurated on January 20, 2069, was the General Exxon Mobile corporation, known as GEM.
For the next one hundred years, America was ruled by corporations. There was no public discussion of issues of policy. Decisions were made in board rooms of the ten major corporations of the country. The system began to break down when one of the ten corporations merged with a Chinese corporation and the merged firm was taken over by a Chinese board of directors. Another corporation merged with a large German firm, another with a Russian firm, and so on. Finally, all of the large dominant and ruling corporations were run by foreigners. The nation no longer had a coherent and consistent policy of any kind. Power shifted among the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Brazilians, the Iranians, the Indians, and the Saudi Arabians. There was a severe world-wide econimic crisis. The dollar became useless in international trade and was replaced by the rupee. Finally, the corporations simply gave up and left the United States. Holding office no longer mattered.
There was a great decrease in population after the corporations left. There was no national government. Different regions fell under the control of local strong men. Some of these strong men were bandits, others were military officers. They had access to weapons. The successful ones made pacts with farmers to protect them from the depradations of neighboring strong men. A new feudal system developed. It survived for 300 years.
[You can finish this story any way you want. My ending is that the feudal system finally collapsed, just as it did in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. History started over again.]