Talk:Corporatocracy/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

First remarks

I removed this 4th paragraph: The best example of a corporocracy is the USA, where bribes are legal and huge corporations bribe politicians to have their bills passed as laws. --MichaelTinkler

I did a search on this term in Google and found no authorotative evidence that the term even exists. There were about 30 pages that used it, but all were in letters and postings of left-wing political organisations. Hence I rewrote the article to point out that it is not (at present) a recognised term from political theory.

I think the most used term is Corporatocracy, with 200 google results. Joao

Corporotocracy Talk (moved from Corporotocracy/Talk)

Thanks for the editorial diligence Zundark :)

The 'governing body' of a company is usually self-appointed, and in the case of many private companies, largely self-perpetuating. The democratic aspect referred to only generally applies to public companies...

No, the governing body of directors is always democratically elected, even with a private company. Under all forms of western corporation law, each share gets one vote in the election of the directors and chairman/president. (To be fair, Islamic law differs in some regards). Public and private only refers to how shares are owned and distributed. Specifically a publicly traded company has its shares traded on a Stock Exchange. A private company will still have shareholders, and they will elect a governing body. Anyone can in principle become a shareholder of a private company if they persuade an existing shareholder to part with their shares in a private transaction. Alternatively a public company may have a 51% shareholder, effectively meaning that the company is under one person's control.

In the US Boards of Directors control the ballet and can only but them selves up for election. This is probably what he means by self-appointed. Seano1 20:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

the 'only the wealthy' can influence policy has to be moderated by referring to the gadfly shareholders (though under whatever name they call themselves) - you know, nuns who buy a share of a major corporation and then drive through continual motions for corporate responsibility. They *may* not influence policy, but they get lots of press coverage and may have a long term effect. They are at the least an example of one-citizen influence, which this busy entry-starter is denying the existence of in America or in corporations. Another direction of expansion is the increasing institutional-control of American corporations: not wealthy individuals but huge mutual funds. There's lots of speculation already about what that means to corporations, but it's not coming from anti-gloablizers. We'd have to get someone for whom the syllables 'coporo' are not the equivalent of 'porno' to add to the entry, which the current tone would perhaps not attract. --MichaelTinkler

Corporatocracy Talk

Validity of the term discussion Google turned up over 200 - mostly biased articles of political motivation. Hence I described it as pejorative. Go here http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=corporatocracy&spell=1

Thanks for the reference. But at the same time google gives 8100 hits for Plutocracy (40 : 1 ratio). And metacrawler still gives no results and I don't think this rather recent term merits a full blown entry. A short explanatory sentence and a reference to Plutocracy should be done at most. Adding a term like this gives additonal credibility and helps to proliferate it. Using not well established terms degrades the quality of an encyclopedia. So perhaps instead of deleting I will just shorten it considerably and move the rest to Plutocracy. Is this OK for you?

Yeah, I agree with your thinking. Truncating and linking to plutocracy would seem to be the best idea. MMGB

• I think that is fine as a separate article. Rule by corporations and rule by the rich are not identical terms. For them to be so we would have to imagine Enron to be rich! In a corporatocracy it strikes me that the impersonal nature of corporate structures is far more important than the wealth of the shareholders. The corporate structure typically gives greater latitude for risky ventures without jeopardizing your own funds. I have no problem with the term corporatocracy being pejorative; that much is admitted right up front in the article. The term is a recent one that is still evolving in the language; I would keep my options open. If anything about it irritates my aesthetic sensibilities it's that the word mixes latin and greek language roots. What would the Greek be for corporation? Eclecticology

---

Here are some notes:

• governments exert control through force (or indirectly, through the threat of force); traditionally, governments have used the force of violence (e.g. military, police, jails); corporatocracies use economic force (e.g. employment, monopoly/oligopoly) in conjunction with agreements which tie economic force to governmental authority (e.g. DMCA, WTO) and thus to the force of violence.
• anti-globalization is a pejorative term as well, and isn't the best word to describe those who use the word corporatocracy.
  • • so is globalization! -Ecl
• What would allow corporatocracy now when it wasn't possible before? Some points:
  • The legal authority of corporations is relatively new; the concept of the "corporate citizen", granted Constitutional protections, is 20th-century
  • Dependent on global network, computing
  • commoditization, etc.

I think if at all possible someone should add some notes on how often the less-affluent-person-influence thing comes up. Right now the page seems to imply that it happens enough to make the idea of corporatocracy a moot point, but if it is a rare occurence this is not true. If on the other hand it is common the page should explicitly state so, and how much so.

---

Sorry, but "democratically elected" means one-person-one-vote, not one-share-one-vote, so it's fine to say that corporations have elected boards, but not democratically elected boards. --LDC

• Yours is a very narrow view of democracy. If democracy comes in degrees one-share-one-vote is certainly less democratic, but democratic nonetheless. Similarly, systems that are based on consensus-building may be just as democratic even if no votes are ever taken. Eclecticology
  • Looking at the article for democracy: The first principle [of democracy] is that all members of the society (citizens) have equal access to power .... Everyone is certainly allowed to buy shares, but they don't have the same chance of buying shares, considering their income/wealth. Hence, one-share-one-vote means unequal access to power and that's not even considering people holding uneqaul amounts of shares. Therefore, they are certainly elected (rather then self appointed) but quite definatly not democratically elected.

---

"No, the governing body of directors is always democratically elected, even with a private company. Under all forms of western corporation law, each share gets one vote in the election of the directors and chairman/president."

Formally you are right. But effectively the shareholder may not have enough knowledge to sensibly take part in the elections - the director almost always has much larger knowledge than shareholder about company- so it may be difficult for him/her to check whether the management of his firm acts in the interests of owners or in its own interest. (it is the problem which in economics is called 'the principal-agent problem', see for example David Begg et al "Microeconomics" chapter 4, or the book of John Kenneth Galbraith from 1973 "Economics and the Public Purpose").

Kazik

---

I thought that Corpocracy was the common spelling. At a minimum, coprocracy should just be a redirect to here.

I suppose that "Corpocracy" is an alternative spelling that should have a redirect from it, but not "coprocracy" which includes the Greek root for feces. Eclecticology 02:01 Nov 5, 2002 (UTC)

Editing Political bickering aside, this article is about four times longer than it needs to be. Cut it down to the Perkins stuff (that being the only referenced material) and stick it in the plutocracy article (or the military-industrial complex article, or corporatism or any number of related articles) and make corporatocracy and corpocracy redirect to plutocracy. Unless it can be shown that this concept is both significantly different from plutocracy and notable enough to deserve its own article. 66.223.176.229 01:58, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

This page is unnecessarily vague and uses too many "weasel words", like "some say," "opponents would say," "according to the global justice movement," and so on. Who specifically? The article should cite sources for these opinions if possible. 129.21.176.115 03:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)Ian

Fascism?

Is this not the same as fascism?81.236.229.130 (talk) 17:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

"fascism" (lowercase 'f') was a lot of different considerations depending on who you ask, but original Italian Fascism tried to construe itself in theory to what they called Corporatism, a lot different than business corporations today (though a lot of modern political commentators like to make the semantic & ad hominem association), so it has nothing really in common with this "corporatocracy". Corporatism was rather more of the private but publicly/governmentally incorporated voluntary guild syndicalism. 67.5.147.121 (talk) 07:39, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Stubbification

I have stubbified this page due to the sheer quantity of NNPOV, OR and unreferenced material. Having done a Google test it does appear that this topic does meet notability guidelines, but it still needs to be rewritten. TallNapoleon (talk) 04:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Merger

This article lacks reliable sources and the term lacks widespread reference. As this was a term coined by the Global Justice Movement that really does not appear frequently in political parlance this should also be removed from the list of systems of government. However some of this material; I would propose merging an abridged, better sourced and NPOV version of this with either Plutocracy as has been suggested, or with Global Justice Movement. TallNapoleon (talk) 00:52, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. I think "corporatocracy" refers to a sign of corruption, in that private (usually large) companies influence law, state etc... to their advantage. I agree that the term may be insulting or exaggerating, but it should not be merged into plutocracy, because corporatocracy is not what the article about plutocracy describes "Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth." I think the term "rule" is misleading, the emphasis should rather be on INFLUENCING a lot. Like lobbyism but with more direct "power". Rule, however, implies too much influence IMO, as the article about plutocracy suggests, thus I think it should not be merged. But if it will be merged, then I think the difference should be emphasized strongly. 80.108.103.172 (talk) 17:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. I'll work on improving the article. --Loremaster (talk) 16:37, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

How about merging it with Lobbyism?

Keeping in mind that that the current version of the article is a substantive improvement from the one that existed when a merger was first proposed in April 2008, I would be opposed to such a merger with the Lobbyism article since these are two distinct subjects that deserve their own articles. The only merger I would support (if absolutely necessary) is with the Corporatism article. --Loremaster (talk) 18:44, 8 March 2009 TC)

I think this article's topic is worth standing on it's own. Governments being "run" by corporations is easily establishable as an important topic. And if this is really topic that anyone has done any research into, there should be enough content for a full article. The problem here is CITATION. This article is about what should be a real topic but is full of unfounded statements, over general statements, weasel phrases, and statements using Wikipedia articles as citation.

In my opinion, the course of action is find reputable sources for the content of this article or remove it entirely for lack of scholarly attention. 66.65.94.53 (talk) 01:37, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

There are no true corporatocracies?

How is China outside of Hong Kong not a corporotacracy? With the government controlling just about everything involving the economy, it seems as if the government is controlling the corporation, rather than the other way around, but that still does not negate the fact that there is no separation of corporation and state; they are one in the same, much like church and state in the Middle Ages.

I know Wikipedia does not allow original research, so can someone help me find some citation about this?

Wikieditor1988, you seem confused. First of all, I suggest you read the Economy of the People's Republic of China article to get a better understanding of that economy. Second, a society wherein both the productive forces - the combination of the means of labor (tools, machinery, infrastructure and so on) with human labour power - are owned and run by the government in a capitalist way (even if such a state calls itself socialist) is not a corporatocracy but state capitalism. A corporatocracy is obviously when corporations control the government. Third, if you need to find a citation to support your opinion it might be wise that you actually take the time to do the research yourself in order to have a better understanding of the subject. Fourth, please remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes. --Loremaster (talk) 14:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you should ask yourself whether there's a difference between the two terms - there isn't - rather than blindly citing Trotskyist terminology. --24.201.253.66 (talk) 19:05, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Unlike you, it seems I know that there is a difference between 1) a government that controls corporations, 2) a government that acts like a corporation, and 3) a government controlled by corporations. --Loremaster (talk) 23:16, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

By the way, what you are describing is a planned economy not a corporatocracy. --Loremaster (talk) 06:12, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

This is not the place to argue over the validity of the topic. That would result in original research ending up in a Wikipedia article. You find citation talking about the issue. If there is disagreement on the issue itself, you create a section for that fill it with cited examples of the arguments. 66.65.94.53 (talk) 01:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I would propose Hong Kong be used as an example because it incorporates, at least partially, a Corporatocracy. This has nothing to do with the original argument, nor is this an argument of opinion or dispute. 30 of the seats in the 60 seat Legislative Council are directly elected by bodies, not individual voters, many of these bodies are companies and corporations. The process of electing the Chief Executive also includes votes from corporations. This is a direct system of government representing companies, and being literally controlled by companies via election. This is a significant portion of the Hong Kong government. And while this is promised to be phased out in the future, it should serve as a current valid example. Promontoriumispromontorium (talk) 04:00, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

East India Company

I must say that I am a bit confused about this article, because the definition of corpocracy seems to be quite elusive. From the first paragraph: "Corporatocracy or Corpocracy is a form of government where a corporation, a group of corporations, or government entities with private components, control the direction and governance of a country." - this give the impression that the corporations are ultimately in charge of the government. However, an other picture seems to prop up when reading the second paragraph: "A historical example of corporatocracy is the East India Company. This British trade organization ruled over most of India, with the support of the British Empire, starting from the end of 18th century until mid-19th century." - here it seems that East India Company were taking care of the day-to-day management of the country, but that the "Britsh Empire" (their monarch, I presume) would have the last word should any disputes arise. Shouldn't it be the other way round in a corporatocracy (the corporations rule the government)? Because it seems that the "corporate power" given to East India Company could just as simply been excercised by the British Crown directly, should they Crown decide to take their powers away from them. 78.69.122.16 (talk) 22:47, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I deleted the claim since it was unsourced. --Loremaster (talk) 00:39, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Is this an actual form of government or a pejorative term, citations are needed for the name as it appears to be original research

This article does not have references to back up its claim that "corporatocracy" is a form of government. Currently this article appears to be original research which is not permitted on Wikipedia. Furthermore it is badly sourced, many of the sources are simply links to other Wikipedia articles - this is not acceptable, Wikipedia does not support internal referencing, the references must come from an external reliable source. Also, the movie Zeitgeist is a terrible source for this article, Zeitgeist has been rebuked and discredited for promoting unsubstantied conspiracy theories, and its claims have been refuted. These poor quality sources combined with lack of reliable sources make me suspect that this article is about a pejorative interpretation of a business corporation-dominated plutocracy labelled "corporatocracy", but that "corporatocracy" not an actual form of government. Please present reliable sources and consider removing Zeitgeist and other controversial and unreliable sources from the article.--R-41 (talk) 08:18, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I thought I would add that the Catherine Keller sources seem to be for a book about divinity not government, at least based on the reviews and the google books sample. Naranoth (talk) 00:55, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

There has been almost no progress done with this article since I raised concerns months ago about its content being unreliable and based on original research. I am going to recommend that this article be deleted.--R-41 (talk) 00:02, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I deleted sections of this article, because of a amazing amount of bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.191.49.80 (talk) 22:27, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

The main problem that I see here is the article is based on original research and seems to be espousing a specific viewpoint. One could argue neutrally that corporations hold control over governments, but this page holds a negative stance on that issue.Astraus89 (talk) 21:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion

I have proposed that this article be deleted based on a number of reasons that are in the template box on the article page. I posted concerns about the content of this article in April of this year and since then no substantive means to address these concerns have been made. I suggest that if no reliable can be found for the existance of the term "corporatocracy", that information about business corporation dominated politics be put into the articles Plutocracy and Kleptocracy that seem to involve the general content of this article.--R-41 (talk) 00:15, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Kleptocracy is about corruption/theft by government, and plutocracy, rule by the wealthy. Neither concept reflects the notion of the modern corporation specifically, being the power that runs the society, overwhelmingly has influence (as much or, very often, more, than citizens) over government policies (and which carries out economic planning, we might add, notwithstanding the 'free market' labels) through centralized economic decisions-making). In crass terms, that the corporations "own" governments, to a large extent, including those governments nominally elected by the people, and not by some back-room conspiracy but by their economic power, and legal in-the-open mechanisms (lobbyists, campaign contributions to office holders and candidates, threats to leave the state or country for another with less oversight and more subsidies etc). As Oliver Stone put it, "Wall Street, you know, you could say—I’m sure Tariq could make a better argument—runs the world. Wall Street, the pharmaceutical lobbies, the oil lobbies, they run our government" and not just the U.S. government. That is quite different from the concept of oligarchy or plutocracy. Harel (talk) 00:47, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Democracy versus Corporatocracy -> Arguments

I've added about 4 or 5 lreferences to the section about Corporatocracy versus Democracy; parts of that may be either moved or briefly re-stated in the Arguments section; I'll leave it to other editors to consider that. And another suggestion; rename "arguments" as "conceptual framework" or similar.Harel (talk) 06:38, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Merge into Corporate capitalism

The article on Corporate capitalism includes proper references and is well written, but it is very short. Most importantly, it is written from a neutral point of view.

The articles on corporatocracy and crony capitalism seem to document pejorative uses of the proper term Corporate capitalism, and are poorly written and resourced. As such, I think that the parts of those articles that are fine should be merged as new sections in the Corporate capitalism article.

-- Gabi S. (talk) 12:53, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Corporate capitalism focuses on economics, while corporatocracy focuses on the political aspects. Both terms are thus not interchangable.  Cs32en Talk to me  18:57, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

They are two different aspects of the same concept, which can be merged into one article. The current state is that the pejorative terms are pov forks of the main article, which is against Wikipedia guidelines. -- Gabi S. (talk) 14:02, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Cs32en. Evenmore, Corporate capitalism is subordinate to the lemma corporatocracy. Mr. D. E. Mophon (talk) 07:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion for proposed all inclusive change

Should this page be deleted? Only if it is replaced with an improved page. Corporatocracy, Corpocracy, Plutocracy, Corporatize, Corporatism...similar words conceived to describe and label the same theme--the interaction of corporations and government in present day society--a needed topic. Many people have written about and revealed the workings of corporations and how corporations effect our world. They have only touched certain planes and have failed to create an overall awareness within the populace. The intent for the meaning of Corporacracy (forthcoming page)is to create an image that describes the total impact of corporate dynasties(both public and private)as they auger their way into every aspect of every persons life. gmw'srevelation(Gmw'srevelation (talk) 21:30, 3 February 2011 (UTC))14:28 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Corporatocracy vs. Corporacracy?

Wow, I'm confused now, what is the difference between Corporatocracy and Corporacracy? Mr. D. E. Mophon (talk) 07:10, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know either. I am more familiar with hearing "corporatocracy" rather than "corporacracy," but the articles seem very similar. Perhaps we should consider merging corporacracy into corporatocracy. They at least appear more similar to one another than corporatism. I've noticed the article is considerably shorter; I looked at the history and saw that an IP deleted a vast chunk of it (including some references, some weak, others possibly reliable) in December 2010 and nobody reverted or challenged it. This article sadly needs far more attention; I am interested in it, but lack the time at present. John Shandy` • talk 16:33, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

No progress has been made on this article in over a year. It is largely original research. It should be deleted or merged into plutocracy

As said above, no progress has been made in over a year. This is largely original research by self-published sources - this is not permitted on Wikipedia. There may be one or two good sources, but not enough to warrant an article on its own - this article should be deleted and made to be a redirect to the Plutocracy article, where relevant and reliable material relating to plutocracy by business corporations should be included.--R-41 (talk) 11:06, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd broadly agree. unless somebody can manage to rewrite it neutrally. Much of the content seems to be misusing sources. bobrayner (talk) 17:31, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Corporacracy was worse; I recently redirected it here. Like it or not, such terms do get used, and wikipedia really ought to have some content somewhere which sets the record straight... bobrayner (talk) 17:42, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

In my experiences, reading things that use corporatocracy or corporacracy, the authors are generally describing what sounds very similar to plutocracy. In fact, I'm inclined to think that these are just alternative names for plutocracy. Perhaps there can be a section added to plutocracy and have these two corpora- terms redirect to that specific section. John Shandy` • talk 19:33, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Does anybody know how to pronounce it? And add one of those pronunciation thingies after it. Like, I'm guessing it's core-poruh-TOCK-ruh-see. (?)--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:39, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

"too big to fail" should be included here somewhere

Too big to fail seems to be an ideal component of this article, describing corporations that have gotten so big with so many interconnected business relationships that the threat of business failure imperils both the government and the economy of one or more nations. These corporations are therefore propped up by the government at any cost, including costs harmful to the country and its citizens, and which may only serve to enrich these corporations, its stockholders, and its executives. DMahalko (talk) 10:01, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree about including the term too big to fail in the article. I found a source in which both terms are used (ie corporatocracy and too-big-to-fail.)  Done--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:09, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Further comment. I've come across an idea from a college lecture course about history in general, in that a problem that has plagued almost all Western societies -- from Greece, Rome, modern western European nation-states, to the US and now most countries around the world -- is that when individuals are empowered via capitalism, and money & credit & banking & corporations become prevalent, that there is a general problem along the lines of increasing concentrations of wealth -- it becomes easier for the rich to keep getting richer -- and the increasing inequality troubles pretty much all societies. It is a tough tough problem since taking away incentives (ie letting some people get more $$ if they work harder, invest smarter etc) risks undermining the economy; but inevitably concentrations of $$ eats away at the equality necessary for a successful democracy.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:09, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Definition

'Corporatocracy' could be define as "a political system of government where corporate bodies act with sovereign power in a society or nation (see Wikipedia for Sovereignty). The degree to which corporations maintain sovereign power over a society may range from mere influence to corporations or groups of corporations acting as government bodies, replacing other, more traditional systems of government." Examples of Corporatocracy may be found in post-apocalyptic works of Joan D. Vinge where a group of corporations act as a near oligarchy ruling the known universe--what exists of the government founded on Earth is more or less bound together, however many corporations rules large areas without contest. Shinra Electric Power Company in Final Fantasy VII is a classic example where a corporation acts as the de facto government for a world or society. Even if governments exist, within a system of corporatocracy, governments are only given what power the corporation allows them, as all military and natural resources are provided for by the company or a small group of companies. Another example could be Rollerball, the 1976 film by Norman Jewison, which depicts a world controlled by a global corporate state, whereby corporations control large segments of the world and use a bloody and lethal game called 'Rollerball' in order to placate humanity's vicious lusts through acts of violence--the modern Roman Colosseum used on 21st Earth--a games to counteract the suffering of a world suffering the plight of absolute corporate rule. The power of life and death.

This article could be combined with [Corporate republic] and is an element of Plutocracy or totalitarian government ruled by corporations and corporate executives.

I'm a little surprised since I first read the term corporatocracy used in Civilization II: Call to Power and thought it was an established term to mean a corporate state. But, it appears to be a fairly unknown game, so I may be a member of the minority here.

http://creatingacriticalmass.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-is-corpotocracy.html

Dragoon91786 (talk) 12:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. It is nice to see people contributing here who think. You are one of these people. I tip my hat to you, that is, if I had one (okay, only a cap).--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I revamped this article perhaps a month ago and here are my thoughts about your thought-provoking suggestions, based on what I learned as I was working on this article:--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

corporatocracy, as a term, is still evolving, that is, evolving much more rapidly than most other political terms (ie all words evolve over time, of course). It may be less than a decade old. Different writers, generally leaning to the left politically, have begun using the word without a formal definition, or without a mutually-agreed upon sense about what it means (there is a general sense that corporations exert too much "power", whatever power is supposed to mean) with different senses, and writers & speakers use it as they wish, generally in a negative way, like a smear or a slap. It is borderline political jargon. And, it often means "I think corporations exert too much influence in government and I don't like it", in a rough sense.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Your proposed definition suggests that corporatocracy is a fully-fleshed-out type of government system. I do not sense that the term is ready yet for such an honor. I did not come across many examples in which it was used by political scientists (although prominent academic Jeffrey Sachs used the term in a recent book.) Like, if a political scientist tried to use "corporatocracy" in an academic comparison against other types of governments, such as monarchy or aristocracy or republic or democracy, then -- it wouldn't look right, now would it? At least not yet. What I came across in looking for sources is that the term is not used regularly by heavy-duty academics yet, generally (although there are signs that this is happening, ie the book Understanding Social Problems) -- as the sense of the term develops more in this direction, then the article could be updated to reflect this.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm curious about some things from your posts above. Joan D. Vinge -- a writer of fiction? Did any of these authors you are reading use the term corporatocracy to describe their political systems? If so, how did they use them, and in which books? The whole fiction angle -- interesting; good of you to bring this up.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

My sense, based on bumping into various ideas, is that the whole idea of corporatocracy is not well thought out (my point of view btw) by people who use the term. The term suggests that corporations are conscience-less impersonal money-motivated power-hungry monoliths which overpower lesser entities (people, consumers, governments); this kind of theme can be found in literature and fiction and computer games; often, corporations or corporate-type henchmen play the villains. But I think the interplay of business and politics is much more complex than all this. Corporations are run by people, serve multiple agendas, have a legally-defined structure which usually operates within a political order (ie charter, bylaws, etc, that is, the political order provides a context for the business order, in a sense) and are primarily focused on business and selling and trying to make a profit, not politics, (but this is my viewpoint of course which I can not put in the article); corporations not well-equipped intellectually to run whole societies (again, my POV) and my sense is they're mostly not interested in such a task; at the same time, they will try to manipulate government when they can to make more $$ (much evidence for this). And people, like you and me, buy things that corporations sell; we can be employed by them; we can run them if promoted within their hierarchies. Are we evil? I think not. When I revamped Lobbying in the United States and as I try to keep learning, the more I see that things are complex, not black and white, and not as basic as one type of entity (corporations) controlling a second (government). Still, at the same time, there is some influence going on (various tugs -- my POV). See the complexity: for example, shareholders in a corporation can vote on management leaders; so, if a corporation runs a government, supposedly, could it be claimed that the shareholders exert the true power? Or is it the managers? Another problem: sometimes corporations compete to win customers; so if a government is a corporatocracy, then which corporations control things? Coalitions of them? Or do they all control things, collectively, and how? These are tough questions. The history of the interaction of corporations and governments is complex too -- Britain (British East India Company); many of the early colonies in the US were chartered as corporations to begin with; Nazi Germany looks like an example in which politicians took control of corporations and turned them into its tools; etc.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The article corporate republic -- my sense is that this term is different in emphasis (ie it emphasizes the "republic" part), although many of the issues might apply to both. Merging the two articles? I think the terms are sufficiently different to justify two separate articles, and a merger could become a mishmash and a disservice to readers.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Your proposed definition -- "a political system of government where corporate bodies act with sovereign power in a society or nation" -- interesting, and I somewhat agree, but do you have references that writers or speakers or academics are using the term corporatocracy in this sense? See, that's what we need here -- sources. It's not what you or I think corporatocracy means, it's what they think it means. Generally, in Wikipedia, the more we stick with sources, and write only within what sources say, the better the encyclopedia becomes. If a fiction writer uses the term corporatocracy, then perhaps we could add that to this article, but mentioning of course that it was used in the context of a fictional work. About the idea that the level of interaction between corporations and governments varies, like on a continuum -- again, is there a source on this? And, the underlying assumption here is that power can be defined along an ordinal scale, like on a scale from 1 to 10; I think it is more nuanced and subtle than that.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

So I guess what I'm saying is that your sense of what corporatocracy has merit in and of itself, I do not sense that the term is as solid as you suggest -- ie an official type of government suitable for comparison with other government types in a political analysis -- but rather is used pejoratively by activists (ie Occupy Wall Street types) and a few academics. And we'd need sources to change it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

But maybe we could mention that the term was used in the PC strategy game Civilization II: Call to Power? And how about adding an internal link to Corporate Republic in the "see also" section? What do you think?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I added a phrase from your proposed definition to the lead sentence; wondering what you think.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:25, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This article is in violation of Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms

This article is about a neologism, Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms specifically calls for neologisms to be avoided. The term is a vague pejorative neologism term - it has been used interchangeably with corporatism - and a FALSE interpretation of corporatism as meaning "business corporation dominated politics" which any scholarly research shows is a false definition of corporatism. "Corporatocracy" is just a neologism for plutocracy involving business corporation dominance of politics. I advocate including relevant scholarly material on plutocracy of business corporations into the Plutocracy article. This article is just filled with newspaper clippings of the use of this neologism, there is not a single scholarly source in the entire article. this is a neologism article that Wikipedia does not support and Wikipedia seeks to delete neologism articles that I support to be done in this case.--R-41 (talk) 08:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable to me. There's another thread just above... bobrayner (talk) 09:05, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll agree corporatocracy was a neologism five or ten years ago, but it has clearly caught on linguistically and is much more widely used today, with clear signs of growth. The term is a staple at the Occupy Wall Street protests. It has been used by prominent academics such as Jeffrey Sachs in his widely-read highly-rated book The Price of Civilization. Activist Naomi Wolf uses it regularly in speeches. And: formal academics defined the term in their textbook Understanding Social Problems (2009) (click on the reference). A second sign that the term has caught on is growing interest: if it was a true neologism, then only a few people would be using it, and maybe page views would be 10 or 20 a day at most; in this case, page views are 300 a day" for corporatocracy -- a month or so ago, there were over 1000 page views -- in one day -- a clear sign that people are interested in the term.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Consider the definition of neologism: A neologism (play /niːˈɒlədʒɪzəm/; from Greek νέο- (néo-), meaning "new", and λόγος (lógos), meaning "speech, utterance") is a newly coined term, word, or phrase, that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event. Clearly, corporatocracy is more than this -- it has entered into mainstream language (but is continuing to be used more and more).--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The term is not defined in any major dictionary and there are no reliable sources in this article. Noting that the term "corporatocracy" is used in a computer game or a film is not a reliable source. The Star Wars film franchise and games talk of an "ion cannon" - but that doesn't mean that there is such thing as an ion cannon because fiction films and computer games are not reliable sources. The only thing the Ion cannon article says is that it is used in many science fiction franchises. Also, for the person noting the "statistics" of views on this Wikipedia article, self-referencing of Wikipedia is not accepted by Wikipedia policy, nor do such statistics mean that "corporatocracy" is based on reliable sources or whether it is a neutral term, or whether it warrants its own article. It is a neologism, because a neologism "may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language - it is in not in the mainstream language because the term "corporatocracy" appears in no dictionary of the English language. Also, where is there evidence that the term represents a neutral point of view (NPOV) on its content and claims? It seems to be a WP:POV fork from plutocracy where such material could be described as a form of "business corporation plutocracy" on the Plutocracy article and would avoid the kind of problems caused by the use of a neologism.--R-41 (talk) 20:39, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Here is a list of sources using and sometimes defining (through usage or by formal definition) the term: Huffington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, Toronto Star, Slate Magazine, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Baltimore Sun, The Urban Dictionary, Time Magazine, Boston Globe, Maui News, China Daily, Random House book publishers. There are 21 references showing usage of the term. These are recognized as reliable mainstream sources. I fail to see how anybody could consider these sources unreliable. Focusing on the Star Wars information seems off, since there is very little in the article about it; it is an interesting usage but does not form the basis of the article. The readership statistics indicates interest in the term -- it has been my experience that heavily-trafficked articles are usually ones people need; deleting this article would deprive 300+ people a day from learning what the term means. The word "plutocracy" has a different sensibility than corporatocracy; it is used differently, by different people; plutocracy is more of an academic term used by political scientists. Last, all words and terms are constantly evolving, including every dictionary definition in Webster's Dictionary; perhaps a few years ago, the term was a neologism, but it has crossed a substantial boundary and is used considerably in places such as the Occupy Wall Street protests. Last, there is no such thing as a "neutral" term -- every word, phrase, linguistic construction has biases, slants; if you think there is such a term, why not list it, and we can take a good look at it; to the best extent possible, this article describes what biases the term has. If you really think the article should be deleted, why not put it up for AfD, but my sense is you'd be wasting your time.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:11, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no definition of "corporatocracy" in any English language dictionary. It is a very recent term with no clear scholarly definition. Traffic on Wikipedia does not indicate anything other than people passing by and looking at an article - it does not legitimize an article's content in any way. Newspapers are not reliable sources on everything - very rarely do newspapers have sources for their work, and often most political sections are commentary and opinion. For example: if newspapers were reliable - then historians would be nodding their heads in agreement with William Randolph Hearst that the USS Maine was blown up by a Spanish mine and thus legitimizing the Spanish-American War (in reality Hearst's newspapers were found to be scandal-provoking and not backed up by evidence - many historians believe that the USS Maine was blown up because one her coal bunkers caught fire by accident and not out of sabotage.) Newspapers are designed for marketing and public consumption - they are not always accurate - many have been and still are Yellow press media.--R-41 (talk) 16:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Clearly you're unpersuaded. But please understand: Wikipedia does not endorse the term -- it does not say the term is right -- it does not say that there is such a thing as corporatocracy which has some kind of valid existence -- all the article says it what it means, based on usage. The idea is: if people come across the term (and MANY do -- look at the pageview stats) and want to know what it means, then Wikipedia can offer this term. And about newspapers not being valid sources: I disagree with you 100% here -- they sell papers every day based on their reliability and integrity, and if they print junk, or untruths, then people won't buy their papers. If you feel strongly about deleting the article, why not put it up for AfD? It's just that you'll be up against those stubborn things called facts and sources -- including academics listing the term in a textbook, and you'll be developing a reputation here in Wikipedia as one who creates unnecessary battles.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Again, it is not defined in any English language dictionary as of yet - so it is a neologism. Political commentary and opinion pieces in newspapers are not reliable sources - they are POVs. Also the term appears to be a pejorative word referring to plutocracy involving business corporation-controlled politics. I recommend that relevant material here be merged into the Plutocracy article.--R-41 (talk) 17:53, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Editing choices

Regarding the removal of the description "left-leaning" -- this is a sticky area here. I think people recognize that this article could easily become a battleground between left vs right (and seemingly endless pointless bickering). The term corporatocracy is pejorative, a negative, painting corporations and their involvement with government in a bad light, and in my view, it is generally used by the left. If someone uses the term corporatocracy, it's fairly clear to me, based on analyzing the references in this article, that they are leaning to the left. I'm non-partisan. I don't vote for Republicans or Democrats. My concern is that removal of the descriptors "left-leaning" makes the term appear as if its universal -- that the mainstream view agrees that corporatocracy is an accepted phenomenon by both sides of the political equation, when there are elements in the right which will totally disagree with this assessment. So, I suppose, let's leave the change for now, omitting the "left-leaning", and see what happens, but if battling begins about it, then I'll try to restore it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:22, 29 January 2012 (UTC)