This is how gov works. Its why we need as little as possible. Its very difficult to hold them accountable when their funding is essentially guaranteed regardless of performance.
Clearly, one of the biggest problems with government (and large corporations) is that individual employees can hide behind and be protected by the institutional infrastructure. Essentially they can make decisions with impunity knowing that the 'system' will protect them.
If we're to restore any faith in our governance then this protection must stop. Decisions made by government employees must be open to public scrutiny, similarly, the origins of government policy—laws, regulations etc.—must be traceable back to its source (those who initiated said policies).
Systems without accountability will always become corrupt.
Power doesn't corrupt, it reveals....
(Truly benevolent dictators are like hens' teeth—non existent.)
sure, there have been such, but nobody ever considered them legitimate like people do with "governments"
There are other corporations in history that had a "security" force of some sort that absolutely was used as a means of intimidation
If I do not consent to rules forced upon me, and stop paying protection money, ultimately government goons with guns are gonna come to haul me away.
In the US, the capitalist mine owners, railroad owners and factory owners all employed paramilitaries to crush worker uprisings-- the tactics often included murder. In the case of Blair mountain, the capitalists' paramilitary forces even used aircraft to drop chemical and explosive bombs (left over from WWI) on striking mine workers.
The use of paramilitaries by corporations continues with e.g., Exxon accused of murders of environmental activists in the Niger delta. But, often corporations use state apparatus to affect violence for their advantage-- e.g., the many US illegal wars of aggression / regime change to steal resources of other nations. Or, the domestic use of police to e.g., attack indigenous protesters attempting to block an oil pipeline (Keystone XL) being built across their land against their wishes-- the police fired tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets, and water cannons (in the middle of winter) on the protesters, in service of TC Energy Corporation.
Governments engage in violence, but large scale government violence is usually at the behest of the very same rich powerful entities that historically employed their own henchmen or even their own private armies. Small scale government violence may just be sadistic and/or corrupt officials. While this petty violence is terrible for the victims, it is insignificant compared to the large scale violence committed in service of the rich and powerful.
The rich don't seem to care if a police department/FBI engages in theft/murder, as long as it doesn't affect them, and state apparatus to inflict violence is simply too useful to the rich to reign it in. Governments are not the problem. The capture of government by the rich and powerful is the problem. Unfortunately, many states seem to have designed their systems to ensure the rich control policy while the masses remain powerless-- the US, where money is speech, is a good example (159 rich people were responsible for 59% of SuperPAC campaign money, and 93% came from 3300 rich people-- they will expect a return on their investment).
https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/disturbing-d...
Gov: let me do X
Libertarian: no way! Big government is bad!
Gov: but what if I was a corporation
Libertarian: shit, that's all you needed to say
Really highlights how some people can think a gov is bad but if a corporation does the same actions, suddenly it's justified.
We should be wary of organizations as a whole, regardless of what form they take.
This is why self-defense laws are important.
The state's monopoly, qua Max Weber, is on the claim to the legitimate use of violence. That is, the right and legitimacy of that right, is restricted to the state, or an entity acting in the effective capacity of a state, whatever it happens to call itself.
Absent this, one of three conditions exist;
1. There is no monopoly. In which case violence is widespread, and there is no state.
2. There is no legitimacy. In which case violence is capricious. This is your condition of tyranny (unaccountable power).
3. Some non-state power or agent assumes the monopoly on legitimate violence. In which case it becomes, by definition The State.
The state's claim is to legitimacy. A capricious exercise would be an abrogation of legitimacy
Weber, Max (1978). Roth, Guenther; Wittich, Claus (eds.). Economy and Society. Berkeley: U. California Press. p. 54.
<https://archive.org/details/economysociety00webe/page/54/mod...>
There's an excellent explanation of the common misunderstanding in this episode of the Talking Politics podcast: <https://play.acast.com/s/history-of-ideas/weberonleadership>
The misleading and abbreviated form that's frequently found online seems to have originated with Rothbard in the 1960s, and was further popularised by Nozick in the 1970s. It's now falsely accepted as a truth when in fact it is a gross misrepresentation and obscures the core principles Weber advanced.
Corporations act with probably the most impunity of all. They are beneficially and popularly thought of as job providers (until they choose to layoff). When they abuse their function in their yearn for profit, they offer nothing to imprison criminally and can only offer financial compensation -- if they haven't walled off their finances and declared bankruptcy for the guilty self. (Thinking of J&J & the talcum powder case.) In the Purdue Pharma/Sackler case, they paid only what they agreed to pay and many thought they got off easy, since none of Sacklers were even charged criminally.
Who has it easier?
See also private militia and police services, e.g., the frequently-renamed Blackwater / Xe / Academi / Constellis.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company)>
There are of course a vast number of other examples.
"More than 1,700 environmental activists murdered in the past decade – report"
Killed by hitmen, organised crime groups and their own governments, at least 1,733 land and environmental defenders were murdered between 2012 and 2021, figures from Global Witness show, with Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, Mexico and Honduras the deadliest countries.
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/29/global-w...>
Not exclusively corporate, but also not exclusively states. For the most part I find the distinction between these two (and other) forms of power to be largely a red herring. The real issue is power and its accountability, not the specific form it takes. Though at least in theory, a government can be made to answer to those it governs.