Corporatocracy

"The Corporatocracy is this group of individuals who run our biggest corporations. And they really act as the emperor of this empire. They control our media, either through direct ownership or advertising. They control most of our politicians because the finance their campaigns, either through the corporations or through personal contributions that come out of the the corporations. They’re not elected, then don’t serve a limited term, they don’t report to anybody, and at the very top of the Corporatocracy you really can’t tell whether the person is working for a private corporation or the government because their always moving back and forth. So you’ve got a guy who is one moment is the president of a big construction company like Halliburton, and the next moment he’s Vice President of the United States. Or the President who was in the oil business. And this is true whether you get Democrats or Republicans in the office. You have this moving back and forth, a revolving door. And in a way, our government is invisible a lot of the time, and policies are carried out by our corporations on one level or another. And then again, the policies of the government are basically forged by the Corporatocracy, and then presented to the government and they become government policy. There is an incredibly cozy relationship. This isn’t a conspiracy theory type of thing. These people don’t have to get together an plot to do things. They all basically work under one primary assumption, and that is that they must maximize profits regardless of the social and environmental costs.”

— John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman