Trade Companies?

[unkated]

So, area A produces some good - cotton, grain, or more ideally some mineral wealth, or perhaps a factory that can be restarted with outside help - and not much else.

The (bad, nasty) Company comes in and sets up shop. Indeed, may even at first seem like good guys - they bring in armed troops to defend the town; organize food deliveries (repayable in work).

The troops may add to the town militia. And learn which of the members of the town can be bought, and who has what arms.

After the first few shipments, the rate of exchange between work and food may begin to slip (running the mine is proving more expensive than management thought. So they say.)

Then one day, a lot of the town is disarmed and finds they are in serfdom, dependent on the company thugs for protection and food, with little capability of changing the balance. Perhaps there is a fire, and the company provides a tent camp for temporary residence, behind a wire fence for the workers own protection...

This could have been...

• the company's plan all along; they are doing similar things elsewhere.
  
• a plan cooked up by the resident manager and the head of security to live off the fat of the land (what fat there is); their reporting structure is remote and unmindful as long as the local manager produces.

Uncle Ted