Carleas wrote: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.