I do agree. In many places, governments are weak, captured, or corrupt. But those are mixed economies, in which state and corporate power fuse into one corrupt swamp: corporations lobby for regulations to crush rivals, officials sell favors. That's not evidence that economic power equals political power, it's evidence that abandoning the principle of a government limited to retaliatory force produces a cold civil war of pressure groups. The solution isn't more regulation, it's total separation of state and economics.

> your second paragraph is at odds with your third

No. The government acting as plaintiff is still retaliatory force: harm occurred, the state helps identify the perpetrator. That's not "public interest" overriding private rights, it's the government protecting individual rights by standing in for many individuals who share a common injury.

And yes, corporate leaders want political power. That's cronyism. They want to use force because they can't win in a free market. It's a road to dictatorship, but the road is laid by the principle of "public interest," not unlimited profit motives.

There's no such thing as "the public," only individuals. When one treats "the public" as a blank check to override private rights, one is really saying: some people get sacrificed to others. The taxi industry lobbying to ban Uber isn't about safety or competition. "Affordable housing" mandates that force landlords to subsidize strangers aren't compassion. This institutionalized cold civil war won't end until the state stops pickign winners.