What should the world fear more- big corportations or big government?

Government run by Corporations… like currently in the USA.

Big corporations.
They control vast amounts of the available money.
They have much control over the economy.
You are dependent on them.
You can not vote for their leadership.

We should fear them becoming one and the same (to a greater extent than they already are).

Big corporations or big government?

Same difference.

Neither. Fear nothing!
We should fear the new find of another missing link.

@ragingloli It might also happen that you cannot vote on a big government ;-)

Big foot,satchquatch is a coming.

Big corporations tend to control government so the former.

Big government.

Neither, in and of themselves, is bad. As they’re run today, both should be dissolved and begun anew. Held directly accountable for their greed, corruption, and inefficiency (and other various failings too numerous to list) both could be quite beneficial to society.

Big Corp – with government, every once in a while, you get an actual social worker in the upper echelons and not just another ladder climber. Not so with the Corp, that’s where the sharks swim. The manner in which we exert force over the government is fairly straightforward and easily understood and acted upon en masse. The only thing that changes Big Corp’s direction or mind is when their wallet is hit, and if they choose to respond to their wallets being hit, and even then we have little control over how they would change. It takes a unified effort of the vast consensus to change a corporate entity, and unity is something that is in short supply.

Children working in mines and factories 12 hours a day was legal until regulations were put into place.

We are the Government, and we are much more likely, in the presence of sufficient honest information to act in our own best interest than are big corporations with no loyalty except to the bottom line. Unfortunately big business has the means and the desire to manipulate public opinion so that people continue to act against their own best interests.

@ragingloli “They have much control over the economy”
I would go so far as to say they are the economy

@w2pow2
They are part of the economy. Ideally, the economy consists of many smaller and medium sized companies too. The problem is, that corporations, due to their size, have the power to, and do, crush their smaller competition and band together with others of their kind to neatly divide the market into territories where they can rule supreme, effectively controlling the economy which they actually are supposed to be subject to.

I’m going to go with big corporations. It’s horrible when a company can get so big that it influences the decisions people who represent us make. Policymakers shouldn’t be working for big corporations with big bucks, they should be working for us.
The Corporation, or watch it on YouTube

Definitely big corporations. They have far too much sway with government, they manipulate the populace, and they only answer to their bottom line. Have a problem with one of them? Good luck!

The Corporation was an awesome and slightly scary documentary. That law professor is in my home town

Governments have guns.

Corporations have coffers.

Governments can make you disappear for ever.

Corporations can try and convince you that you need a product.

You do the math.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard You don’t think that corporations wouldn’t make you “disappear forever”? It happens.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Some corporations have guns. And some have made people disappear forever, just usually not in the United States where it’s easier to make them look crazy.

Corporations have guns and coffers

Government can be used for profit, by corporations.

Corporations can cause death and damage on large scales though neglect and not having proper safety checks in place.

Government can help protect the population through legislation that holds the power of Corporations in check, make them responsible for their products and services and ensure they are safe.

YOU do the math.

@tranquilsea and @Snarp, examples? I am aware of certain PMC groups, but aside from those, can you provide an example?

@cazzie, How many people have been killed by the neglectful acts or companies compared to the number of people who have exterminated by governments? I’m not defending the despicable acts of certain corporations by any means, I’m merely trying to point out that many governments are massively more powerful and have infinitely more resources than Wal-Mart or Halliburton when it comes to being able to control, kill, or imprison people like us. Yes, most governments, particularly the United States government, are more or less in the pocket of some industries, but in the end it’s the men whose fingers are on the launch buttons who have the ultimate power.

Also,

This, this, this, this, this, and this.

Well… thalidomide… Union Carbide in India…. and if you want to look hard at Chile..you’ll see that there were corporations there, fighting against labour unionists.. so… Fail,,, fail fail. You DON*T get that the ‘Governements’ you speak of are RUN by corporations and causing the problems you don’t approve of. take off the blinders.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Well, I was mainly thinking of the PMCs, but virtually every major corporation employs armed security personnel. These days we don’t hear much about them, but in the days prior to liberal policies defending the rights of workers to organize, striking workers were routinely murdered. There are also some very disturbing stories, most unproven, regarding the behavior of American Companies in Latin America.

@cazzie, I’m aware that it is impossible to paint this issue with a broad brush. Please, have some courtesy. And would you kindly point out where I misspelled the word government?

Also, if corporations always cause the problems I’m referring to, how do you explain the Soviet Gulags or events such as the Whiskey Rebellion? Both of these events happened in anti-corporate or pre-corporate societies, respectively, and both played a role in suppressing, hurting, killing, etc. certain citizens of the countries they occurred in.

@Snarp, Thank you for the examples. I’m familiar with the treatment of workers, particularly near the turn of the century and on into the twenties. I can name more than a few companies who kept Thompson submachine guns in lockers in case the workers decided to “get out of line.”

However, my point here is about scale. The horrible treatment, murder, and sometimes slavery of workers cannot compete with the the large-scale wholesale murder that governments (even anti-corporate ones, such as the Khmer Rouge) are capable of.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard
None of these were run democratically, but dictatorial, like corporations.
And all of them in a time when corporations were not as powerful as they are now.
In past times, in the west, governments were indeed the greater threat. But today, the picture has changed and the greatest threat now comes from corporations.

That is a good point, @ragingloli. Thank you.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard… first… apologies for misspelling government…. and putting it in quotes… I was not pointing a finger at any misspelling on your part… Just a misunderstanding of the word itself. The Soviet issue was in extreme reaction to a system that favoured a feudal structure. The world was in a time of industrialisation, and the worker, who found he needed to demand his rights, organised in Russia and overthrew the overclass. They (the overthrown overclass) ended up in the gulag and anyone who sympathasied with them, and like ANY revolution… (like the earlier French Revolution and the Chinese Cultural Revolution) many people died who shouldn’t have….. man.. this is difficult… can’t be covered in a paragraph….

This question (and answers) remind me of an awesome protest sign from one of the G8s. It read: We will all now bow our heads while the Corporations lead us in prayer.

Gotta love protester’s signs sometimes.

@cazzie, No worries. Also, I’m a history major. I read this crap for fun on a regular basis. Don’t worry about ranting, I can handle it.

Issues I have though… Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems as though you are defending the gulags. Huge numbers of POWS, political prisoners, and even religious dissidents were thrown into them.

Apathy

gov

At this point there isn’t much difference. Look at the industries the gov. has it’s fingers in now. Ins., banking, autos, health care, etc., etc. Plus look at some of the people in gov. now.Tim Geithner for one.

Both. And there is not much difference right now anyway.

Big anti-government polemicists.