Just out of curiosity...

[Zero_Sum]

At least the "corporate government" is a devil-we-know. Corporations' motives are transparent as can be: they seek profit. The government is much less transparent, made up of elected representatives and life-tenure bureaucrats with motives from glory to greed to laziness to misguided principle etc.

Corporations own and fund the government [ all the individuals in it] not the other way around.

[Carleas]

Both "corporations" and "the government" are collections of people. They are not mutually exclusive sets, and the flow of influence within and between them are not as simple as one 'owning' the other.

[Zero_Sum]

Both "corporations" and "the government" are collections of people. They are not mutually exclusive sets, and the flow of influence within and between them are not as simple as one 'owning' the other.

Corporate lobbyists within congress and the senate.

[Carleas]

Sure, no doubt government is strongly influenced by corporations. But corporations are influenced by government, via laws, regulation, administrative and prosecutorial discretion, etc. Take copyright, for example: government decisions over the past couple centuries created whole industries, which then lobbied government for stronger copyright protection, and government obliged creating yet stronger corporations and lobbying interests.

It's a bit arbitrary to point to either side of a feedback loop like that and say that one side is dominant. It may be true locally (e.g. on who wrote a certain bill), but globally the system evolves together.

[Zero_Sum]

Sure, no doubt government is strongly influenced by corporations. But corporations are influenced by government, via laws, regulation, administrative and prosecutorial discretion, etc. Take copyright, for example: government decisions over the past couple centuries created whole industries, which then lobbied government for stronger copyright protection, and government obliged creating yet stronger corporations and lobbying interests.

It's a bit arbitrary to point to either side of a feedback loop like that and say that one side is dominant. It may be true locally (e.g. on who wrote a certain bill), but globally the system evolves together.

This is where we'll disagree, corporations and banks own the entirety of all government influencing all the very laws or regulations in place especially in so called democratic nations. [As far as banks and corporations are concerned more deregulation of business rather than regulation since that leaves them unhindered with impunity.]

Government historically use to be in charge of business, wealth creation, and private companies under monarchy but that all went away with parliamentary democracy where everything reversed where government is reduced to an organization that serves powerful private interests only. Democracy has never served the majority like it constantly claims to because it is an individualist philosophy to its core. In order for a majority of the population to be served you would need a collectivist model of government and monarchy was just that albeit an imperfect one but nonetheless worked a lot better than modern democracy. Contrary to popular belief monarchy was a collectivist form of government ruled by single individual much in the same way modern autocratic governments are.

In my studies of historical forms of government I'm starting to understand that collectivism are the best models where individualism models lead to disastrous environments that solely function to serve powerful individuals only at everybody else's expense. This is all a consequence of liberalism and democracy where I know you'll argue to death in support of both but the nonetheless this my perception on the subject.

[Carleas]

I don't think complete ownership by corporations and banks is plausible, but assuming they completely control government, they still compete against each other, and there are winners and losers among corporations and banks for any given policy; "corporations and banks" don't have monolithic interests. Google is going to want lax copyright laws and Disney is going to want to make them stronger. Banks that specialize in corporate debt may be OK with more restriction on publicly traded stocks, because that will increase demand for what they sell. The interests aren't uniform, they compete against each other for influence and they tend to be represented by different legislators and different agencies.

That means that the government will still pass laws that corporations and banks don't want, and those laws will reshape corporations and banks, influencing their structure and makeup, and thus what they will lobby for going forward. There's a feedback loop.

[Zero_Sum]

I don't think complete ownership by corporations and banks is plausible, but assuming they completely control government, they still compete against each other, and there are winners and losers among corporations and banks for any given policy; "corporations and banks" don't have monolithic interests. Google is going to want lax copyright laws and Disney is going to want to make them stronger. Banks that specialize in corporate debt may be OK with more restriction on publicly traded stocks, because that will increase demand for what they sell. The interests aren't uniform, they compete against each other for influence and they tend to be represented by different legislators and different agencies.

That means that the government will still pass laws that corporations and banks don't want, and those laws will reshape corporations and banks, influencing their structure and makeup, and thus what they will lobby for going forward. There's a feedback loop.

When you have any kind of liberal society conservatives included not just the neo liberals where privatization and individualism is paramount to everything in society where collectivism for all intents or purposes is dead it very much is indeed possible under a corporate bureaucratic framework for entire governments to be owned by corporate interests. The real power in the United States is not the president or the political parties for that matter but instead revolves around the corporate lobbyists that fund and campaign behind them. This is why time and time again banking or corporate interests are set to highest priority over the common man, woman, and child especially in a country like the United States.

Also, the kind of democracy or the illusion of it is democratically totalitarian in nature that only reinforces all of that.

Sure, different corporations compete against each other in the zero sum game of accumulating financial power but there is also a lot of collaboration or collusion behind the scenes protecting their various mutual interests.

[Carleas]

I disagree with some of what you're saying (e.g., I think the free market is a collectivist project), but I agree with the punchline that there is collaboration and collusion to protect mutual interests. However, I don't think that's automatically a bad thing. That's basically what Madison describes in Federalist 10: bring enough competing interests together to collaborate on their mutual interests, and you will advance the mutual interests of society as a whole. And it's mostly worked, the standard of living in the US has increased exponentially, sustaining more people in more comfort than the world has ever seen. Modern times might seem particularly corrupt, but that's due in large part to increases in transparency, which have shown light on political processes that have always been ugly.

Another point where we disagree, crucial to all this, is that the competition isn't zero sum. There's more wealth now than there was a hundred years ago. The competition has been positive sum, it's created positive externalities and consumer surplus. I know this is a hard sell for large swaths of the modern economy, but I think that's due mostly to a failure to appreciate just how much the past sucked. And while it's not guaranteed that today's machinations will continue to create positive spillovers to the extent they have for the past centuries, it is a fair starting point.

[Karpel Tunnel]

I don't think complete ownership by corporations and banks is plausible, but assuming they completely control government, they still compete against each other, and there are winners and losers among corporations and banks for any given policy; "corporations and banks" don't have monolithic interests. Google is going to want lax copyright laws and Disney is going to want to make them stronger. Banks that specialize in corporate debt may be OK with more restriction on publicly traded stocks, because that will increase demand for what they sell. The interests aren't uniform, they compete against each other for influence and they tend to be represented by different legislators and different agencies.

That means that the government will still pass laws that corporations and banks don't want, and those laws will reshape corporations and banks, influencing their structure and makeup, and thus what they will lobby for going forward. There's a feedback loop.

Some things they have in common: they want things privitized. They want to control their own government oversight. They want to use things like the IMF- broaden that to other kinds of organizations too, like say the Trilateral commission - to not allow either democratic or autocratic laws in theoretically sovereign nations to interfere with what they will call free trade and will support measures to undermine both democratic and autocratic resistence to these changes in those countries. They want governments and court systems to be easier to control by the wealthy, but most by corporations including banks. They want capital earning to be primary, as opposed to labor. They dislike unions. They want to radically reduce the commons. This has included privitization of water and even attempts to own certain species and even individual human bodies. I don't think they are done with either of those things. They like centralization of the media and continue to radicalize this with no invisible hands yet guiding this process. They are happy to have the lower classes bear the burden of wars that benefit the upper classes. They are fond of regime change to open markets for them and are willing to manipulate their own media nad governments to make these changes. They do not want campaign finance reform. They like the effective anti-democratic lobbying options. They do not mind taking long term risks that benefit their income. So, given their control of their own oversight, they will take financial policy and technological risks for all of us, though risks they are much less likely to suffer the consquences of. They see nature as resources with no value in itself. They see us the same way. Note: the institutions, not all the individual members. And they effectively moving things in a common direction. Up until the 80s their common goals were offset by other parts of society who had other goals. They have been consolidating power since then and the tide has been turning backwards for the first time in a long time.