I've got my nose in the first draft of Rule 34 by Stross at the moment (yay for LJ), and one of the background details is that the supermarkets were nationalised, because they've eaten all the logistics needed to run a country; banks and post offices to the retail sector and the petrol stations. Interested to see how that one turns out. Jury is still out on whether Scottish independence will fall into the category of interesting rather than accurate prediction.

He's pretty emphatic when he says that Halting State is already obsolete.