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Multinational/Transnational corporations replace governments.

The rise of the transnational corporation as a replacement for 'classical' government bodies.

In the 'Sprawl' trilogy there is no real government. Instead the world is ran by a number of very powerful corporations like Hoska, Sense/Net, etc.

In Snow Crash the 'franchise system' replaces the government. In the case of Snow Crash the Federal government of the US has been broken up and sold to the highest bidder (Library of Congress, Military, Highway system). What is left is a powerless shell.

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~erich/cheaptruth/

Bruce Sterling and some other underground sci-fi guys wrote this sometime in the early 80s.

List of Themes

The City - What does it stand for? Why are cities and urban life portrayed the way they are?

Another day of digging. More ILL requested and more articles printed off.

The difficulty I?m having right now is that I?m having trouble finding people who have written about the content, and themes of cyberpunk. Most of what I have found it literary criticism about cyberpunk. While they touch on the themes are part of their critics they never go to far in depth about them.

So a short update. I have spent the past few days digging thought the 'American Humanities Index' for articles related to the topic at hand. I've found some good stuff in full text and ILLed for a few others. No new thoughts at he moment.