In your country, do corporations have more power than the government?

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100
3 votes
Dec 19, 2015

I think the question is a bit mis-stated. I would say that corporations use the government's power, and work to expand this power.

Much to the detriment of our liberties and fortunes. It is inequality of opportunity that causes inequality of wealth. People who are well-connected to the government and the leadership in large corporations have a distinct advantage over the average citizen.

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0
User voted No.
main reply
0 votes,
Aug 22, 2016

I took the same tack, but remember: Thanks to free trade deals like GATT's later rounds, corporations now have effectively their own government with their own judicial system that can overwrite laws.

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100
1 vote
Dec 19, 2015

no they do not. they think they do because the government is inefficient, but the people will eventually stop the corruption. the people are in charge. the government has overlooked this fact way too long.

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100
User voted No.
1 vote
Jan 2, 2016

Well I'd take issue with the use of the word 'power'. What is meant by that: hard power? Soft power? What do you mean?

My opinion is that they don't, however that's based mainly on hard power (because I'm a realist). In terms of soft power they are the main actors, while in terms of hard power that remains in the hands of states.

Hard power matters more to me; I view it as more significant and that is why I believe corporations do not have as much or more power than governments.

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100
User voted Yes.
1 vote
Jan 3, 2016

We all know our system is broken. It cannot be fixed at this point. It must be replaced. Our founders forsaw such a time as this. They inserted article V into our new United States Constitution for the future need of calling for a Constitutional Convention. It's time to take this thing down. Shut it down...all of its offices, all of its agencies and all three branches of it's diseased organism.

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50
2 votes
Dec 19, 2015

There are many reasons why I think that yes, companies are more powerfull than governments. I will only list two of them here.

Money makes the world go round. Large corporations often are run by wealthy people. This is where the not outright comes into play. If you have a rich, charismatic, popular person, you can easily get them in a political seat, or fund someone who will get elected. People in power usually help the ones who help them get there. Sometimes you here about those kind of practices.

One word: PRIVATIZATION. Security contracting and privatized space operations are already in place. For hundreds of years mercenaries have been used in warfare, but now large corporate entities are able to amass large armies of these private soldiers and equip them and sustain this without worry of public outrage for the erratic spending. Also with the new private satellites and space flights it's not out of the question that their surveillance and communications would rival the governments. Many other aspects of life are privatized but are too numerous to list.

Oh, and corporations only do business while government need to take care of the people when they're in a great need. And taking care of somebody costs money. Yes, I know it was the third one, but I couldn't resist.

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100
main reply
1 vote,
Dec 19, 2015

Corporations do have the money and the goons as you say. And at present have more power. but it is the government who has allowed this. The people have the power to stop both of them. Although I'm not going to hold my breath until it happens.

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50
2 votes
Dec 19, 2015

No.

Corporations have learned they can reap the benefits of making governmental decisions by owning and controlling the government, just as they are now, without having to put up with the negative side effects that bad decisions from the government elicit from the people.

This is actually a very old tactic on the part of wealth... remain BEHIND the government so that the government stops the slings and arrows caused by the policies made by the wealthy that will increase their wealth at the expense of the masses.

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0
User voted No.
0 votes
Aug 22, 2016

It depends on what you mean by "corporations", "government" and "power".

I live in the United States. The US government budget is 3.8 trillion, or about 21% of the GDP. Is any one individual corporation stronger than that in raw economic terms? Heck no. Could any corporation wage war on the United States? Heck no.

But do all multinational corporations have more money than that? Yes. Do all multinational corporations combined have more military resources? No, but they possibly could do so and might if the US were not to represent their needs.

Can an individual corporation affect local, state and even federal government on individual issues? Yes. The U.S. government is not a unified thing: bureaucracies have different and sometimes opposed tasks, and the reality that one can in various ways control the

When Clinton tried a very small stimulus package, it inspired an outroar from investors who threatened to negate the stimulus by simply selling bonds. Clinton later said, "You mean to tell me that the success of the economic program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of f***ing bond traders?" The fact is that capital flight and the power of bondholders does have a massive influence over the US government.

Then again, those with bonds themselves don't want their investment to tank. You can only threaten so much against the world's biggest economy.

It does seem to be the case that America is an oligarchy. Going back to Ferguson's "Golden Rule", that those with the gold make the rules, the US has for decades been heavily influenced by various coalitions of investors in both parties, but in recent years even those institutions that had some power to stop them like the unions have declined in their capabilities.

So corporations run the government, but the government has powers that they can't easily emulate. And corporations aren't a unified bloc either: they oppose each other. That's the entire point of Ferguson's investor theory of politics: the sharp differences in the present party system can be attributed either to populist distractions (abortion, gay marriage, etc.) or to honest disagreements among the leading economic-political class due to their varying needs and perspectives.

The interesting fact about this question isn't the answer, but the fact that it's even close. It means we have allowed multinational corporations to become so massive that their powers rival governments, and indeed eclipse the power of many governments in the developing world. Phillip Morris can bully around countries like Togo and Uruguay because they have money that rivals or exceeds the budgets of those governments and sometimes even the GDP of those governments. Some estimate that 50% of international "trade" is just inter-corporate transfers. Corporations provide the vast majority of jobs, and even if you just look at corporations that are above the level of small-and-medium-sized businesses, the bulk of the workforce is still dependent in some way on corporations. (After all, many smaller businesses only exist in a business-to-business, or B2B, climate, and are dependent on their larger or equally-sized business customers). Corporations have simply immense power.

When you take into account the way that trade agreements have effectively allowed a shadow government of not-insignificant power to overturn national sovereignty in ways that are nearly-exclusively to the benefits of corporations, there is a very strong argument to be made that, yes, corporations are stronger.

I ultimately answered "No" because if the United States were to sharply begin to take control, like they did with Bretton Woods, corporations would have very few options. If we had the death penalty on our books for capital flight like they did in South Korea, I suspect people would toe the line. But the actual power of government, without substantial political support and an informed and active populace, to hedge against corporations is very low.

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