CHOAM
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantile or CHOAM is a fictional universal development corporation in Frank Herbert's Dune universe, which is first mentioned in Dune. Essentially, it controls all economic affairs across the cosmos, though it is actually reliant upon the Spacing Guild for transport across space due to the Guild's monopoly on faster-than-light travel.
The corporation's management and board of directors are controlled by the Padishah Emperor and the Landsraad (with the Spacing Guild and the Bene Gesserit as silent partners). Because of its control of inter-planetary commerce, CHOAM is the largest single source of wealth in the Old Empire; as such, influence in CHOAM (through partisans within it and control of directorships) is the central goal of political maneuvering , both to receive dividends and also (it is implied) to skim off profits.
In the Dune universe CHOAM is the current leader in technological research and development, but is careful not to advance in the proscribed fields of artificial intelligence, which would be breaching the ancient tenets of the Butlerian Jihad. CHOAM is believed by some to be at least loosely based on the Dutch East India Company. Frank Herbert identified it with OPEC.
In any case, its structure is exact to that of a public company. It is consists of shareholders, and like in a public company, major shareholders are given directorships to lead in the board of directors. But in this case, the shareholders are all made up of nobles from the Landsraad which is constituted of Minor Houses, Great Houses and the Imperial House. The Great Houses predictably hold the directorships of the company and the Emperor wielding power to give out directorships and revoke directorships at his whim therefore making the fictional company unique from real-life companies.
[edit] Reference
- ↑ from pg. 20 of the 20th anniversary edition of Dune (ISBN 0-441-17271-7):
"You have no idea how much wealth is involved, Feyd," the Baron said. "Not in your wildest imaginings. To begin, we'll have an irrevocable directorship in the CHOAM Company." Feyd-Rautha nodded. Wealth was the thing. CHOAM was the key to wealth, each noble house dipping from the company coffers whatever it could under the power of the directorships. Those CHOAM directorships- they were the real evidence of political power in the Imperium, passing with the shifts of voting strength within the Landsraad as it balanced itself against the Emperor and his supporters.
 |
This Dune-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
