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What? I am not aware of a single company that is at least as powerful as the smallest government. What do you mean?


Try paying for things at a shop or service that only accepts credit cards when you've been banned from having one. Who bans you from that? Payment processors.

If all the insurance companies decide they won't insure you, how will you get health care? The government had to intervene (with the ACA) because that particular problem was so bad.

People trying to immigrate often have to use email to communicate with government agencies. If gmail bans their account, they can no longer talk to the immigration agency. I've seen a couple different people have this exact problem.

There are plenty of other examples.

Certainly governments have the power to do all these things as well, but large influential companies can absolutely ruin your life if you get the wrong kind of attention (or in the case of automated policy decisions, get unlucky).


This is something much different from the previous claim (that companies are as powerful as states). None of this means that the company is more powerful than any state.

And regardless - no business is going to send you to prison, while the state can. No business will shoot you, while the state can. So even in this interpretation of "how much can they fuck up my life" the state wins.


Many of the things I cited are powers that businesses have and the US government does not have. I don't know why this is hard to understand.

Businesses are free to shoot you as well, private security guards can carry guns in most parts of the US. Businesses can also send you to prison via false police reports, which is a thing that has happened periodically.


All things you listed are entirely in the power of governments - even the smallest ones. I'm actually fighting with the state about one of these you listed as we speak (healthcare insurance).


While governments technically have the power, they are easily manipulated by interests with large amounts of money.


Why are my large amounts of money not helping at all, then?




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