on the other hand, this is how democracy dies. what structures (systems) exist to prevent apple (and other comparable corporations) from being an oppresive force against human persons? moreover, what incentives do they have?
Apple doesn't have a military or police force with jurisdiction over me. They don't have the legal power to arrest me or throw me into prisons, which they also don't have. I don't have to pay taxes to Apple. I don't have to do business with them or interact with them in any way if I don't want to. I don't need Apple's permission to do anything unrelated to their product lines.
Same is true for any megacorporation. It's a big stretch to say they are even remotely as powerful as nation-states, let alone more powerful.
Many nation states don't have control over interest rates (because their central banks are run independently of the government) or even the ability to print money, if they have adopted another currency.[0]
> Mandatory taxes
States typically tax transactions which happen on their territory (e.g. wages and sales), and in the case of Apple, their devices are their territory, like feudally controlled tracts of land in cyberspace. Taking a cut of all app sales and in-app purchases seems very much like a tax under this analogy.
And many others do. The State can abdicate such power and it usually does in stable economies where markets can self regulate. Given a big enough crisis, however, and the State will usually take that power back.
>or even the ability to print money, if they have adopted another currency.
Usually in cases of near total State bankruptcy
>Taking a cut of all app sales and in-app purchases seems very much like a tax under this analogy.
That's an interesting take.
Nope. You can avoid buying an iphone, but you cannot escape Google. I'm often forced to "do business" with google. I've seen several government websites that require code hosted on Google's servers. I need Google's permission to do all kinds of things unrelated to their service (reCAPTCHA) and google will track everywhere you go online even if you never use any of their services. Facebook also doesn't give you any option. They'll create a profile for you and start collecting data on you even if you've never created an account. You could argue that you pay these companies taxes in the form of your data rather than money, or that the fees they charge developers drive up consumer prices (acting as a tax on the purchases), and I suspect that should Apple/Google pay become more commonplace they will start charging a fee (tax) for that as well. Nothing stops them from doing it.
Some corporations even have their own literal armies (Blackwater/Xe/Academi), but others don't bother because they have the ability to command the police and military wherever they are. The RIAA have their own "swat" team. They participate directly in raids breaking down doors and handling evidence.
Companies like Apple and Google are far more invasive than police watching everything you do, listening to everything you say, recording every person you're in contact with. They censor and ban with impunity. If they really wanted to, they could plant data on your devices that would get you arrested and thrown in prison in any country around the globe.
corporations might not yet be as powerful as a nation state, but they're a lot closer than you give them credit for, and they likely have more direct influence on your day to day life and what happens to you.
Captchas are definitely worthy of criticism, but they are not remotely on the same level as forcefully controlling the land under someone's feet.
Also, few know this, but many African slaves who were victims of the slave trade became slaves due to debt-slavery (though this didn't involve formal banks). I've seen estimates of up to 25% of slaves back then having been debt-slaves.
I hadn't realized that about African slaves; debt for what?
https://www.un.int/orderofmalta/about#:~:text=in%20your%20br....
I only found out about this bank because the former president of the mexican central bank -- Mr. Carstens, left the central banking gig to go to that bank.
Source: friend used to work in the BIS and I've also been involved in banking off and on for a long time, including dealing with various international banking regulators.
Some fun BIS facts:
1) They process payments via regular SWIFT[2] messages. So the $100m in aid comes as a message just the same as if you transfer $5 from one bank account to another. It has an IBAN number with a regular bank account, so if you changed that to your own account details and the message was processed suddenly $100m would appear in your checking account instead of going fund an aid programme for some government in Africa or whatnot.
2) The number of payments they process is very low (>100 per day max and usually in the low tens of messages) so every payment message is checked by hand by several independent people as well as having automated checks. Partly to avoid the risk of funds getting sent to the wrong places etc.
3) My friend worked there in the 90s and said that even back then they had extremely strong security with multifactor biometrics on every entry to the premises. You got in via an entrance where you had to step into a cylander which would only unlock after it had taken multiple photos including an iris scan
[2] https://www.swift.com/about-us/discover-swift/messaging-and-...