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Comment by itistoday | Hacker News Reader

> Corporations are stuck in the middle looking at their bottom line, but pressured from both sides.

Maybe some of them fall into this category, but many of the others are the ones pulling most of the strings.

They are responsible for millions of dollars in campaign contributions, whereby they essentially buy seats in the House and Senate and dictate much of the legislation. They influence voters through mass advertising and propaganda, they influence the representatives through lobbyists and the threat of withdrawing their financial support.

The "government" then becomes a battlefield between the ignorant, the manipulated, the enlightened, and the powerful manipulators sitting at the top.

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many of the others are the ones pulling most of the strings

This seems to be a chicken-and-egg question to me. I'm not sure how you can determine whose strings are being pulled, and who are the pullers.

Is it really the corps that are coercing the politicians into misbehavior? Or is it the politicians that create an environment in which corporations can gain an advantage by doing so?

Who has more money and power in your opinion? The answer of course differs by country - it's one extreme in the US and another extreme in Russia or China.

Perhaps I don't understand the question, because I can't see that the answer is variable.

In all countries today, the power of the government, or an individual politician, exceeds that of a corporation. That's obviously true, or why else would the corporations be contributing to political election campaigns? Corporations are (despite popular complaints) at the mercy of their customers; look at the OP for an example of how corporations are held instantly responsible for any perceived action, contrasted to politicians who "launch an investigation" and then the problem is forgotten long before the next election, or who use demagoguery to convince voters that they are the lesser evil; if the opponent wins the country will fall apart.

Similarly, in all cases the government controls far more money than any corporation. What portion of the GDP does the government's budget make up? Compare that to the revenue of any corporation.

EDIT: OK, guys. I'll take a down-vote, but please give me the courtesy of an explanation as to why I'm wrong.

I can accept the vague assertion that "the government" is more powerful than a given corporation. However, the government does not ever (not even in the aftermath of 9-11) act as a single unit. Looked at in this way, it's easy to see that there are many corporations that are more powerful than individual politicians. Money and corporate connections are force multipliers with politics, and concerted corporate strategies can effect many changes that affect the public at large, as well as tax revenue deficiencies and other free-rider problems.

>In all countries today, the power of the government, or an individual politician, exceeds that of a corporation.

Nonsense and demonstrably false. If Al Gore had won his election that would have been the first time in 20 years that a candidate who didn't spend the most money won a presidential election. In Michigan the only Senator to vote against the Patriot act got ousted by a clueless hack who, once again, happened to spend a lot more money.

Spending more money doesn't always win, but it has enough effect that politicians live or die based on campaign contributions. Snap their fingers and wipe away a corporation? Yea right, so no other corp would ever give them money again?

I'm afraid you're living in a dream world. The US government is completely owned by big business. The only difference between republican and democrat is which companies they are owned by.

Correlation != Causation

It's true that if the person who becomes president is always the one who spent the most money that the money might not have had any effect, but that's extraordinarily unlikely. It's hopefully not the only cause but it's virtually guaranteed that it's related and very likely that it's a major cause.

Yes, theoretically national power supersedes power of any single corporation in that country. That doesn't mean that corporations as a whole don't influence governments or vice versa. It all comes down to who needs whom the most.

US multinationals do depend on security provided by US Government, but they can exist without it too. The US Government on the other hand is absolutely and wholly dependent on large multinationals, at least in it's current form.

In China or Russia it's the other way around. Government does work with both domestic and multinational big co's, but shall the need arise they will be reduced to Nil in no time as has been demonstrated time and time again.

P.S. power of any individual politician exceeds that of largest corporations? Seriously?

US multinationals ... can exist without [the US government] too.

Yes, in the sense that they don't need to rely on the government. On the other hand, they are at the mercy of the government. One quick flourish of the pen, and a company can be destroyed. Obviously this is true at the startup scale, where a niche can simply be erased. But even at the larger scale, a national decision to back one approach can be devastating (as in FCC decisions). Or antitrust actions can decimate a company (ATT, IBM, narrowly avoided by Microsoft). The bottom line is that the government has the guns, literally.

The US Government on the other hand is absolutely and wholly dependent on large multinationals

I simply can't see how this is the case. Can you explain further? I mean, I don't see how the government needs Google or GM in any way.

power of any individual politician exceeds that of largest corporations?

I probably made that sound grander than I should have. In once sense, if every other politician is against you, then in general, winning one to your side won't help. However, in more realistic circumstances, winning a single person to your side (especially with America's committee system) can make all the difference. A single congressman influencing the language of a bill can mean hundreds of $millions in income, or the complete obsolescence of your business plan.

One quick flourish of the pen, and a company can be destroyed. Obviously this is true at the startup scale, where a niche can simply be erased. But even at the larger scale, a national decision to back one approach can be devastating (as in FCC decisions). Or antitrust actions can decimate a company (ATT, IBM, narrowly avoided by Microsoft).

This is just absolutely not true. When US president has the guts to suggest that company(ies) responsible for largest ecological disaster in US history should pay for it, it equalled to "shake-down" to people currently running US legislative branch, then what are we even arguing about? ATT, IBM and MSFT were decimated? Seriously? They were broken-up, as they were approaching monopoly (that's a good thing you know), but all three examples and their spin-offs are thriving since then.

One thing you got right though - start-up world is risky.

Your response seems to assume that if the government is "right" in its action (apparently as determined by your criteria alone), then the action of force somehow doesn't count. That is, because BP did evil, or because consumers might be protected, government action somehow doesn't count as force that asserts power of corporations.

Even if you're right, it's beside the point. My argument was that government holds ultimate power even against the biggest corporations.

It is true that they're not always able to wield their power, as in your BP example. That's a good thing, because it demonstrates that the government is at least constrained to operate predictable (i.e., the rule of law). If the government were able to spin anything as a righteous stand, and do whatever they thought they could get away with, then business (and indeed any freedom) would be stymied, because people could not be certain that they'd be able to go about their business -- the fear from uncertainty would inhibit all sorts of activities.

And the fact that ATT and IBM are doing well now really doesn't enter into it. The simple fact is that these were giant, powerful corporations. Yet the government still had the power to tear them apart. That simple fact demonstrates my argument; the "goodness" of the action is besides the point.

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