European countries do not kowtow to corporations the way the United States does. In the US, the corporations own the politicians and they do the bidding of the plutocrats and the oligarchs — you know, the share holders and board members.
But European countries don’t let corporations run the show. And I wondered why this is.
Could it be that because Europe has had the bad taste in its collective mouth regarding kings and queens through the ages, that when it came time to form democratic governments they KNEW how to construct rules of government that limited the power of the powerful?
In the US, the new aristocracy are the corporate plutocrats that run and pay for government. The Koch asshats, and their ilk. When the corporations were just beginning to become “a thing” in the US, the likes of the robber barons, the train tycoons, the oil and steel magnates (Rockefeller and Morgan) we tried to handle them and the monopolies they formed (as all true capitalistic enterprises will eventually try to do). But when dozens, then hundreds and then tens of thousands of corporations and the power they wielded rose and demanded control of the country, its resources and its wealth — US Citizens had NO IDEA what to do? Why? Because we’d never had tyrants trying to run our lives for century after century.
So, is the United States just an aristocratic victim in the making because there’s no way that the plutocrats in power are going to relinquish that power? Or, like Europeans, can we learn to control the corptocracy?
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
I think there is a difference between monarchies and monopolies: while they both inevitably fall, monopolies have a shorter lifespan. Within our lifetime we will look back and think, Gosh, do you remember when Google was the height of technology? Just like we now speak of Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, etc.
There are a ton of these books about amazing companies that managed to win a difficult fight – generally by some “accomplished” journalist. Three or four years after publication, the companies become far less important.
The only difference is that Google, Facebook, etc are aggressively acquiring new things, so their heads are likely to be in charge of the next big thing too.
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Google and Facebook are not really the corptocracy I speak of. Though they are no doubt becoming such.
I’m trying to figure out why European countries, generally, have lower inequality (much lower in some cases).
I’m pretty sure in the US it’d due to the corporate control of government ( Congress kowtows to big corps constantly — just look at the ugly healthcare-pharma-insurance control those sectors have over the House and Senate today).
So, how is it that the US, which was early and naive in its Constitution creation, so egregiously unequal? While Finland, Norway, and many others are much more equal?
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That’s one measure which certainly must be taken into account- but at the same time much of Europe still functions around models of aristocracy. Sometimes overtly like the UK and Spain which have royal families, and sometimes less overtly like Germany or France where people use more discreet codes to determine people’s roles and placement in the hierarchy.
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Yes, I see your point. I guess I wasn’t looking for a fundamental reason for the differing approaches to controlling corporations, but perhaps one extra piece of the puzzle. And to me, it’s the corporations that are responsible for the exorbitant inequality.
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I suppose corporations are the new “method” for the creation and maintenance of aristocracy. Much more efficient than a royal family or dictator because Google can’t be deposed.
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Perhaps I should qualify them: the socially aware Europeans, those countries that have tax and welfare systems that focus on citizens and not corporations.
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So, yeah, Europeans are pretty much different.
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Not sure Europeans are that different…
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