Why do I even need to ask this?
For starters there are both elected and non-elected offices in government where one person will be given the power to make life changing decisions for millions. This is a perfectly ordinary feature of organised society.
Regarding companies, if you don’t want people who own companies (or their agents) to be able to decide how the companies are run, then you need to prohibit either private property, or employment all together.
An employment agreement is simply one party offering labour, and another offering payment for it, and a company is simply people pooling their resources together to achieve more than they could alone (companies server other purposes to, but this is the relevant purpose for this discussion).
An employer is always going to be able to make decisions that are life changing for their employees, by deciding they no longer require their labor for instance, by ceasing operations, or relocating, or withdrawing a product/service from the market.
If you don’t want employers to have the ability to make decisions that impact the lives of their employees, then you either need to abolish private property (the ability to offer payment for labor now becomes impossible), or outlaw employment agreements. Whether an employer has one employee or one million is really besides the point.
For starters, because of freedom of association. You are free to not work for any company you like. If you feel like an employer is oppressing you, you can simply leave (unless they’re violating labor protection laws, then you can recover damages, and leave). If you feel like your government is oppressing you, you don’t have the freedom to simply stop associating with them.
Then you have the fact that the role of companies in your life is completely different to that of government. The purpose of your relationship with your employer is to exchange your labor for money. That’s it. How you live your life outside of that is completely up to you. If you can’t come to an agreement on terms of employment acceptable to both parties, then you simply don’t have to associate with them.
You also have the fact that if you have skills that employers want, then they have to compete for your labor. An oppressive employer isn’t going to have much luck acquiring such labor.
I know it sounds like a great hot-take, but the two entities play completely different roles in society, and such a comment doesn’t stand up to the most basic scrutiny.
Nice in theory, but what about companies that are so large that they effectively control the labor market? What about companies with non-compete agreements? What about collusive non-poaching agreements between companies that lower the market value of labor? What about companies that disregard employee safety because they know the labor pool is large?
These are not theoretical objections, they are happening now. Employer/employee agreements are not "free" when they break rules like these.
There is no such company in the world, and if there was, it would almost certainly be an illegal monopoly.
All but one of the rest of your theories are illegal everywhere, and the last one is illegal in many places (or at lease unenforceable).
If you have a problem with companies breaking the law, then you have a problem with law enforcement. Not corporate governance in general.
The American rule of costs means it doesn't matter if it's not enforceable (which actually it often is). They still have a cause of action to destroy you by the mere act of dragging you through court (and the associated legal costs). And most lowly employees aren't aware of, or willing to test, the enforceability when they get threatened by their ex employer.
The balance of power is rapidly swinging against all but the corporate elite. The Randroids will have us back to serfdom before this decade's end.
> All but one of the rest of your theories are illegal everywhere, and the last one is illegal in many places (or at lease unenforceable).
The definition of "monopoly" varies widely even within the USA, and enforcement of antitrust issues generally depends on who has political power.
If a company has market control and is monopolistic, but no one with power actually prosecutes them for their behavior, then is what they did actually "illegal"? Whether something is legal depends on both the written law, as well as how it is enforced.
> There is no such company in the world, and if there was, it would almost certainly be an illegal monopoly.
Funny wording, it's like saying "nothing bad as happening, but if there was, it would be illegal." My original point is that yes, there is bad stuff happening, there are many monopolies, but no one is doing much about it.
Very true. It's all there. 5 year plans, top-down control, a lot of internal propaganda, suppression of inconvenient opinions.