An important difference here still is, that corporations (in traditional free market economies/countries) - arent government.
It basically goes like this.
Corporations can buy laws, and thats 'wanted', because what benefits them will create jobs.
NGOs can lobby for laws through mass movements, and thats wanted, because they also keep their hand on the pulse on certain sections of society.
People can exchange politicians, if they are unhappy.
Politicians can chose not to act on coporation or NGO lobbying - if other interests are more pressing.
Lobbying is basically wanted. The excuse is, that 'politicians can't know everything on their own'. So the capital cities where lobbyists meet NGO staffers, meet politicians - serve as a pool to discuss interests.
If you are richer - you get more access. If you, as an NGO, have higher population numbers that you can mobilize you get more access. If you as a politician become corrupt (or too corrupt, some would say) - you get voted off by citizens. In the traditional system - media was also needed for that.
So the important part is still, that those are different entities. Which are not solely reliant on one of their 'sponsors' but on all of them.
So politicians still have to weigh interests. Even if corporations buy laws.
Corporations usually dont buy laws 'directly'. But indirectly they do. The bigger ones have the money to staff good law people 24/7 near the political headquaters, and they write law proposal texts, and they can signal wishes (see first posting) to politicians, and they can ask favours from a head of state (think Merkel), if they are so big - that they became systemic.
Its all supposed to work, even if politicians arent impartial. Because - if it gets 'too bad for citizens' they get voted off.
The systems actually arent designt for politicians to be all smart - and or angels.
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The most problematic, and thereby most interesting aspect of all this I came along, was actually international trade laws and international arbitral tribunals.
Because those are actually extranational entities, that arent bound to national laws - and facilitate in trade disputes.
And there contracts that say "your state has to surrender its independence to an international body" - or "has to follow the suggestions of the 'lender of last resort' - by law" are possible - just so that investors can get their promised return on investment.
So in those cases you can utter 'democracy' 100 times, it wont count. International law values the interests of the investor more.
You do that - so larger Investors have 'safety' on political or legal stability (which basically should allow them to get their expected return on investment) so that they are wiling to invest at all.
If you want to read up on an ultimately failed example of a corparate state being created:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Boys
(That one is actually an important story from many different angles - so get to know it.
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(Also - CD Projekt Reds next game will be situated in the cyberpunk genre. A form of SciFi, that has thought through many concepts of 'what a corporate state would look like'.
Just as trivia.
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