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My point is that you are implying government is the alternative ("they will govern morally! academics will keep them in check! journalists will keep them in check!") then you need to rethink your conclusions
I implied nothing on purpose, though I understand people will find meaning in other's words on their own.
What sort of solutions do you have in mind, if not governmental? Or do you not think solutions are necessary (that this isn't a problem)?
The laws, that I get to, in at least some way, help craft as a citizen of a country are the only real voice I can meaningfully exert, far more than a boycott or trying to buy shares and sit on a board. And that's a power every voter has.
Heck yeah I want to maximize the government's power to make a better life for me and everyone else--the corp's not looking out for us, but we are.
There are obvious constraints on this slider. Set the slider too low, and a weak government is vulnerable to take-over. Set too high, the people are oppressed, unhappy, and will revolt.
The West's slider is pretty firmly in the middle, although it's uneven from policy to policy (it's set very low on gun ownership; it's set very high on commercial flying).
The US Federal government could acquire far more power in a variety of ways. For example, they could federalize local law-enforcement. They could run drones within our borders, for both surveillance and assassinations. They could outlaw independent media and control all media output (a la Russia). They could require us all to carry Federal ID and require us to show this ID to any law-enforcement on-demand, for any reason. They could require us to run special DRM/tracking software in our smartphones, and fine/jail us if we remove it.
To put it in a more concrete sense, the government can decide to tax whisky at a rate of $1m per barrel. But it almost certainly doesn't have the power to enforce this against moonshiners, rights and law or otherwise.
The government hasn't remotely maximized its power.