Political references in System Shock 2

[673f9cc1f3f38Kolya]

Tags: °SS2 °article °politicsI'd like to concentrate here (for now) on what was added to the basic cyberpunk formula of System Shock, when Levine wrote the story for SS2.
The main antagonist of Trioptimum is an equally faceless, bureaucratic monster government, referred to most of the time simply as "UNN". A rather obvious reference to the real world organisation of the United Nations.
Unlike the real UN whose main goals are communication between the nations and achieving world peace, this UNN ("Unified National Nominate") is depicted as a power hungry, quasi communist world government, who's impeding technological progress in every way they can. On top of that they fail "to win the hearts and minds of the lower classes".
One might begin to wonder what's the base of the UNN's power anyway. They formed from the national governments banding together against megacorporations who had created quasi private states. So are the UNN democratically elected?
What's their interest in impeding technology instead of controlling it? Or is that what they do?

Bureaucracy became the
watchword of the day, and technological development slowed to a
crawl as everything had to be signed and countersigned in triplicate.

SS2 manual

A democratic decision making process is indeed quite slow, compared to corporate decision making. Accordingly Triop is shown to be acting dynamically and hindered only by the crippling bureaucracy of the UNN.

I often wondered what's the mindset that creates such a scenario?
It seems like Levine wished to place an adversary opposite the megacorps dating from early cyberpunk, that is painted in equally stark colours. Basically it's communism vs. capitalism.
But the strong dislike against large corporations in cyberpunk culture and literature was never anti-capitalistic but always anti-monopolistic. Cyberpunk figures would despise these companies due to the same attributes that are given to the UNN here: Megacorporations in SS1 are power hungry and crippling technical progress by locking people into monopolistic schemes. While the individual (the hacker) is looking for challenges and solutions, trying to expand his knowledge and individuality, megacorps were the adversaries, shackling these private goals. However the alternative isn't communism.

The communistic nature of the UNN is reflected later in the game by the Many, turning it into a horrifying but ecstatic religion of the mass, whereas SHODAN is a personification of technological progress and an extreme individuality that despises and destroys every social relationship.
 
Again the player's perspective is formed to be a lot closer to SHODAN's view. The fact that she's an arrogant and deceptive bitch makes her interesting, she's even attractive. However no one in their right mind would seriously consider joining a cannibalistic cult of deformed zombies, however powerful and great the glory of the Many may be, and how sexualised their ecstatic evolutionary path is.
The view is slanted once again versus a social(istic) community that devours its members literally.

I remember reading what Levine wanted to express with Bioshock, when the game was still in production. Something about every ideology becoming dehumanising when taken to its extreme. In this case the rampant capitalism of randian conception. A counterpiece to System Shock 2's rampant individualism?