HardNut @ HardNut @lemmy.world

Posts

0

Comments

74

Joined

2 yr. ago

I didn't say the workers decided things, I said they had a right to, and then alluded to the diplomatic issues that creates.. In fact, I heavily implied they can't realistically make decisions when I said the group decides things on their behalf.

Central Planned Economy: an economy where decisions on what to produce, how to produce and for whom are taken by the government in a centrally managed bureaucracy.

In socialism, the market is controlled by the state. This fits the definition of central planning perfectly.

In capitalism, the market is not controlled by a centralized bureaucracy.

Okay I see what you mean. You agree attempted, but never achieved, I see that now. I'm sorry for misconstruing your argument, but I still take issue with your assertion that things got drastically better. That's a big red flag to me and tends to be a sign that someone is having a big misunderstanding.

.

The Soviet Union doubled life expectancy from the mid 30s to the mid 70s

While true, it is essentially a lie by omission to leave out other key details. For one thing, if you think about it, what kind of conditions would one have to be in initially to make doubling the life expectancy even possible?

The Russians were in horribly dire straits. Life expectancy fell from 37 to 32 from 1930-1935. The chief cause was forced collectivization of farming by Stalin. Privately owned farms were confiscated by the state, and were horribly mismanaged which resulted in famine. Socialist policy directly caused that famine.

Life expectancy started going up again in 1935 after they relaxed grain procurement quotas, decentralized, and opened up private plots. This is the scaling back of socialist policy, and the implementation of capitalist policy. Capitalism policy is to thank for stopping the famine.

had constant GDP growth until it liberalized and collapsed

The US has had exponential growth, rather than linear, along with many of its allies. Russia also supplies a large percentage of the world's oil, you'd have to make fucking up an art to make your GDP go down with a supply like that.

guaranteed free Healthcare and education,

Both were an improvement considering I don't think much was their for either before, so I'll give ya that.

and had mass housing initiatives

These came in response to a housing crisis caused by inadequate supply of houses when the USSR nationalized it under the Central Board of Architecture. The housing initiatives did help, but the housing problem was never solved, and it was a problem created by them.

It had far lower wealth inequality than before or after its existence

Because he killed the rich people, and no one had anything. Equality is not an intrinsically good quality, especially when it means everybody is equally impoverished.

.

I guess this is why I find the observation that communism has never existed pretty naive. Socialism, in its most honest representation, is really the state ownership of the means of production. The way Stalin held ownership in common, was to collectivize it under the state that all citizens are part of. If we are trying to achieve a stateless society, then holding ownership in common is an antithetical goal. Every step the USSR took away from common ownership was a step towards private ownership, and therefor a step towards capitalism.

Socialism means workers collectively own the means of production, and it isn't synonymous with central planning.

This can only be true if you stop thinking at the end of the sentence, without reading into any of the implications, or any circumstantial cause and effect.

If the workers collectively own everything, then that means that every worker has just as much right as anyone else to make decisions on how the process plays out. This means that the group has to come up with a way to make decisions. Since the group has to make a decision, and everybody has a right to make decisions, the group is effectively making decisions on behalf of those in the group.

If the workers collectively own everything, then that means they have to work together and organize to get things done. This means that the group has to come up with a way to organize. This means that the group will be deciding on behalf of those in the group what work is done by who.

If the workers collectively own everything, that means the workers have to decide what rules or laws to follow, and how to enforce them. So now the group has to decide by what convention it'll hold its members accountable. If it wants to hold members accountable, it implicitly has the power to do so.

A group with decision making power that enforces law among its members is a central authority.

A central authority with power over the market and all decision making is central planning.

Your description of capitalism legitimately sounds like mental gymnastics. You can call anything centralized if you reduce the context to only itself. That is dishonest, the context here is the market. If a market is centrally planned, then all aspects of the market need to be centrally planned by the same unit. That's what central planning means. A disunited group of private entities all planning things for themselves is absolutely not an example of central planning.

Heracles

Sure, and capitalism has never existed either, only specific forms of libertarian-constitutionalism 🤷‍♂️

Now, if you can see how silly what I just typed is, you should be able to see how silly it is to claim communism has never been tried. You say yourself that Marxist-Leninism is a communist ideology, so if it's being attempted, then it's valid to say a form of communism is being attempted.

Do you consider drastically improving upon previous conditions to be a miserable failure?

All of the citation needed. Don't make the mistake of including the goals of outcome as part of the definition, that's just cheating. Op obviously rejects the idea that it makes things better, you can't just assume it a priori.

Might be a regional thing, I don't think I've ever seen a new church built in my lifetime. The only churches I see closing down are the ones in small towns that don't have the population to maintain it anymore.

I'm curious, do you see a trend in the denomination of these pop-up churches?

I appreciate your comment and defense a lot. You seem like a very kind person and you're very straightforward with your words, I like that. I'm telling you that not just because I believe it's true and you deserve to hear it, but also so you don't take it the wrong way when I tell you that, well, I'm sorry but I found your comment a bit condescending too. And I don't blame you for it! Truly, I get it. You are referencing the fact that I'm on the hunt for the truth on Google, and it's fair enough that it paints the picture in your head of a young, maybe naive, person on the hunt for the truth of this nebulous area of private and public ownership. I guess it's not really far from the truth either lol. But, the context I haven't shared is that I actually am very educated on this. I studied economics, history, philosophy and political science in post-secondary for two years before graduating (with a different major) and a minor in philosophy. Outside of school I've actually read heaps of books pertaining to the general theories the revolve around the distinction between public and private, from anarcho-capitalists to totalitarian-communists and everything in between.

The reason I don't share this context and why I choose to reference google, is because after all this studying I've come to see that most conclusions drawn by these intellectuals can be demonstrated very easily by using commonly accepted definitions. Most misunderstandings can be contradicted by people's own language or easily accessible sources, so that's what I try to do. It seems a lot more favorable to do a simple "premise -> premise -> conclusion". Besides, it just seems like a waste of time to open up a physical copy of some philosopher and manually re type something to quote them, just to come off as as grand standy, or just get told they don't like who I quoted, or have the comment not even post to begin with because Lemmy has issues with long comments.

I'm sorry, that's enough about my frustrations for one comment lol. I just wanted you to know I don't come from a place of naivety or ignorance on the topic before I respond to your insights, because I think the assumption of ignorance has prevented some people in this thread from reading what I'm saying in good faith. I also do think you're mostly spot on in what you say. The only exception might be that while I am familiar the distinction between public traded and private organization before, I don't think that distinction applies here. After all, you're totally right, things do change based on context :) I'll try and show you what I mean.

My original comment's purpose was to show the flaw in using capitalism as a catch all term, especially when it comes to medicine. The most commonly used definition of capitalism refers to private ownership. You're absolutely right that private can refer to not being publicly traded, but private ownership refers to "being owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body".

Regarding the term public, when things are open to the public, they are open to us because we are members of the public. Public places are open to members of the public. We are members of the public, public refers to the state, and we live in a democracy and are thus members of the state. People who are exiled are not free to trade in stocks because they no longer are a member of the state that holds them. Exiled folk are not free in public places because they are no longer a member of their public, and are banned from visitation so they're sent elsewhere.

Recall the definition of Corporation I provided before, specifically that it's "chartered by the state". This means the government and the government alone establishes corporations as legal entities, and sets the parameters by which they can do so. They exist as part of the state, but operate separately from the government, under parameters set by the government. That's the distinction that's made when you call Microsoft a private organization, the business isn't controlled by the state directly, but government and corporations are both part of the state, and they certainly influence each other a lot right now.

This can also be seen in the etymology of the word itself, along with the history of how modern corporations came to be. "Corporation" comes from latin corpus, meaning corpse, or "body". A body that's chartered by the state, a body of the state. The reason the etymology took this path can be seen in how corporations evolved with time. The publicani of Rome is sometimes considered the first corporation to exist, which were independent contractors that performed government services. The Dutch East India Company found the first stock exchange, and was a corporation owned and controlled by the Dutch senate as well as others.

Now, considering where corporations evolved from, and the amount of easily identifiable government-corporate collusion today, I think corporations land far closer to being an independent arm of the state, and publicly owned than representing the private ownership represented by capitalism.

Now, just to nip it in the bud, you might infer that this means that corporations are socialist. Well, kinda, but also no. Characteristics of corporations can be seen all over early modern socialist philosophy, including syndicalism and trade unionism. But, if socialism is the public control of the means of production, and corporations are controlled independently, it doesn't quite fit, right?

The context between these two areas is tricky, and your understanding makes sense without the additional context. Sadly, we’re terrible at naming things.

You and I couldn't agree more. I guess it would really help if people incorporated (heh) the word corporatism into their vocabulary. We could freely disagree on the nature of corporations and their relationship with public and private ownership and control, while still distinguishing companies like Microsoft from ma and pop shops with clearer language.

At the very least, I wonder if you can agree that there's enough reason to take issue with blaming all issues on capitalism alone, when there's so much more to it. Feel free to let me know what you think :) I know it was still a really big comment but, yeah, like I said, there's a lot to it lol I really appreciate it if you've even read this far

I don't know what to tell you when it comes to farms. Where I'm from, farmers have been able to buy land pretty damn freely. In my small town, there are hundreds of private farms, and it's thanks to the fact that government isn't stopping us, and it's only slowed recently since corporations and government have taken an interest in buying land themselves. Private is the farmers, public is the corporations and government. Farming should stay private, to prevent the misuse of land that comes with government and corporate ownership. The fact the it remains arable and plentiful is thanks to private ownership in fact, because the owners have a vested interest in not depleting the value and use of their land. Farming is their way of life, they don't want to lose it.

You tend to see land misuse and resource depletion in corporate and government farms, not private ones.

Are you suggesting we have a more powerful government to limit incorporation?

The government currently regulates private entities really heavily while also doing things that benefit themselves and corporations. I would suggest that they both stop working with corporations like that (enforcing patents on helpful medicine for example) which would make the government and corporations both less powerful.

Empowering the government in a way that hurt corporations is tempting, but I'm not sure if it's possible since corporations are charted by the state itself. It would be really hard to have the state create them in a way that doesn't in some way help them, and thus it would be hard to stop them from empowering the corporations because they'll always benefit from it. They set it up, house always wins.

If you are suggesting the government abolish the right to incorporate, I’d entertain that notion with you.

That might be the answer, just get rid of them. It'll be hard to get done, for the reasons I described, but yeah, I think it might have to be done. Let's enthusiastically agree on this one :)

And just for clarity, when we’re talking about regulations, are you also suggesting we dismantle things like the FDA?

Hmm, great question honestly. Really hits the heart of the medicine issue. I think it serves a public good, because big corporations had the freedom to sell some awful stuff, but with corporations gone... maybe not necessary right? My position is that it's currently regulating far too much. A lot of potential medical innovation has been stifled for dubious "safety reasons", while there's also been a lot of dangerous things stopped, so the balance is hard. Reduced regulation is where I stand for now

That's a popular belief, sure. But, limited resources aren't the only thing that exist in markets (art, ideas, services, consultation, etc...). In fact, much of the necessary resource market is entirely renewable (most food certainly is).

Limiting government regulations over fiscal entities just trades governmental tyranny for corporate tyranny over the working-class.

It's just kinda funny that this is your response when I demonstrated state-corporate cooperation inflicting that tyranny. Corporations are chartered by the state, and the are currently also empowered by the state. Lowering regulations for private entities would empower them against corporations. It would also just make sense considering they are more regulated than corporations are currently, and the market is already completely captured by corporations.

Public corporations are absolutely not private :)

I don't really need to point out that you're actually just being really rude and lashing out at someone who's challenged your beliefs, I don't think anyone could read your comment and see anything different whether they agree with you or not. But, I'm still happy to reason out why exactly a public corporation is not private. I don't mind taking the time to go over the facts and leave a few references, even if I don't really expect you to read any of it in good faith. You just should know that everything I said actually can be directly reasoned from respected sources.

For starters, would you dispute my definition of capitalism? "The private ownership and/or control of the means of production". Not only is this from Marx himself, but you'd be hard pressed to find any capitalists who would describe it any other way. It's widely accepted all across the isle.

I think that's a pretty strong start in knowing what capitalism is. I guess what might be left for debate is what can rightfully be called "private".

Private Ownership:

• the fact of being owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body. (I googled "define private ownership")
• Private companies are owned by those who establish them and those invited to invest in them. The public-at-large cannot buy shares or otherwise invest in private companies at their own discretion.

Public Ownership:

• A public company is a company that has sold a portion of itself to the public via an initial public offering (IPO), meaning shareholders have a claim to part of the company's assets and profits. (Same source)
• ownership by the government of an asset, corporation, or industry. (I googled "define public ownership")

So, if it's owned by the government, or has shares available for purchase by any public body, then it is public. If it's not owned by the state or public body, it's private.

Johnson & Johnson, just like all public corporations, has its shares available for purchase for the public. Therefor, it is public, not private. Honestly, the more you go into it, the harder it is to get away from the simple fact that private means private, and public means public.

Corporation, specific legal form of organization of persons and material resources, chartered by the state, for the purpose of conducting business.

As contrasted with the other two major forms of business ownership, the sole proprietorship and the partnership, the corporation is distinguished by a number of characteristics that make it a more-flexible instrument for large-scale economic activity, particularly for the purpose of raising large sums of capital for investment. Chief among these features are: (1) limited liability, meaning that capital suppliers are not subject to losses greater than the amount of their investment; (2) transferability of shares, whereby voting and other rights in the enterprise may be transferred readily from one investor to another without reconstituting the organization under law; (3) juridical personality, meaning that the corporation itself as a fictive “person” has legal standing and may thus sue and be sued, may make contracts, and may hold property in a common name; and (4) indefinite duration, whereby the life of the corporation may extend beyond the participation of any of its incorporators. The owners of the corporation in a legal sense are the shareholders, who purchase with their investment of capital a share in the proceeds of the enterprise and who are nominally entitled to a measure of control over the financial management of the corporation. Corporation

Please feel free to point out any fact you think I got wrong.

I'd love for people to stop using capitalism as a catch-all term for every wrong in the world. This post illustrates a great reason why.

Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. This means every private citizen has control over that which they own, and is free to sell it. In short, it's characterized by a free market, because everybody is free to sell whatever they want.

The reason people view this favorably is because if, for example, someone is selling some really useful farming tool, they're free to sell it at whatever price they want. But, someone else - who is also free to sell whatever they please - might figure out an alternative or their own way to assemble this tool. They can now sell it for a lower price to get more customers, thus forcing the original inventor to bring down the price as well. As a result, the farming world becomes more efficient thanks to innovation and market forces.

I feel like most people understand market forces, so I'm sorry if I'm not saying anything new yet, but it's crucial for seeing the flaw in the next part...

Modern medicine is not controlled by private entities, and they are not operating in a free market. The conditions that allow for market forces simply does not exist in Canada or America (probably Europe too but I know less about their system to get into details).

Take Johnson and Johnson for example. For one thing, they are not a private entity, they are incorporated and act in the collective interest of its shareholders. If capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production (which it is!) then immoral acts they take cannot be attributed to capitalism.

Now consider their business, aside from who owns and controls them. They have a medicine called Stelara, which has no generic alternative. They have an effective Monopoly on this Crohn's medicine, becauae no one else is allowed to sell medicine of the same chemical composition until the patent wears out and it's genericized. This patent is enforced by the state. So, the state enforces a ruling that prevents private business from selling medicine, which gives the corporation an effective Monopoly.

So we have a public entity, using state-enforced rules to prevent a private business from controlling the means of producing that medicine. That's completely anti-capitalistic from every angle I can think of

When a new medicine is invented, and a company marks up the price to high heaven, it's not because they're a capitalist and thus greedy, that simply shows anti-capitalist bias. It's because the state and the laws they enforce give them the opportunity to.

People can be greedy whether they're capitalist or not, so don't use it as an indicator for the flaw in capitalism because you'll just be wrong a lot of the time, because they're independent things

The middle ages ended in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople, which coincided with the birth of the Renaissance in Italy having already taken place.

The Iroquois Confederacy was founded (most likely) in the 1500s, with the earliest record of the first capital being in 1609.

The United States itself was founded in the 1700s.

Their comment was correct, the Iroquois Confederacy was founded during the age of the Renaissance and our modern conception of America came much later

(2/2)

State: State, political organization of society, or the body politic, or, more narrowly, the institutions of government.

Government: the governing body of a nation, state, or community.

Corporation:

• a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.
• specific legal form of organization of persons and material resources, chartered by the state, for the purpose of conducting business.
• Also from Britannica: "As contrasted with the other two major forms of business ownership, the sole proprietorship and the partnership, the corporation is distinguished by a number of characteristics that make it a more-flexible instrument for large-scale economic activity, particularly for the purpose of raising large sums of capital for investment. Chief among these features are: (1) limited liability, meaning that capital suppliers are not subject to losses greater than the amount of their investment; (2) transferability of shares, whereby voting and other rights in the enterprise may be transferred readily from one investor to another without reconstituting the organization under law; (3) juridical personality, meaning that the corporation itself as a fictive “person” has legal standing and may thus sue and be sued, may make contracts, and may hold property in a common name; and (4) indefinite duration, whereby the life of the corporation may extend beyond the participation of any of its incorporators. The owners of the corporation in a legal sense are the shareholders, who purchase with their investment of capital a share in the proceeds of the enterprise and who are nominally entitled to a measure of control over the financial management of the corporation."

The definitions themselves begin to show why the relationship between corporations and the government is a lot more complicated than private companies. Corporations have to be recognized by law, and law is enforced by the state, therefor corporations only exists at the whim of the state. What's more, is the means of trade for these stocks is also controlled by the state.

The first stock exchange to exist in the world was the Dutch East India Company. It was founded by the States General of the Netherlands, which consisted of the Dutch senate and the House of Representatives. The New York Stock exchange was founded in part by Alexander Hamilton, a statesman, founding father, and Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. In the United States, securities exchanges like the NYSE are primarily regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 is the key federal law that governs securities exchanges, including the NYSE.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that both of these entities enjoyed quite a bit of independence from their governments, but that independence is not complete, was granted in its establishment by the state, and has been gradually lessened with time.

That said, it would also be prudent for me to point out that corporations tend to govern themselves. NYSE is subject to its own set of rules and regulations. The exchange has its own regulatory body, the NYSE Regulation, Inc., which is responsible for overseeing compliance with the NYSE's rules and federal securities laws. Many decisions are put to a vote by the shareholders. So, it contains a governing body and engages in internal politics? That's a state!

Corporations are a state in and of themselves

Yes, that conclusion was properly derived just from the definitions of state, government, and corporation, however I'm not the only one to describe them as such. German sociologist Max Weber used the term "state within a state" to describe modern bureaucracy in general. One prominent thinker who discussed the concept of a corporation as a "state within a state" was R.H. Tawney, a British economic historian and social critic. In his influential work "The Acquisitive Society" (1920), Tawney critiqued the influence of large corporations and argued that they operated as powerful entities with their own interests, often independent of the interests of the broader society.

Why does this matter for credit scores?

Well, credit scores are already implemented by federal agencies:

• Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): HUD oversees the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which provides mortgage insurance on loans made by FHA-approved lenders. Lenders use credit scores, among other factors, to determine eligibility for FHA loans. So, the fed can reference your credit score to deny housing loans.
• Department of Defense (DoD): The DoD uses credit history as one of the factors in determining security clearances for military personnel and civilian employees. This means your fiscal credit score has influence in whether the fed considers you a security risk.

There are more but I actually don't feel like listing them, they mostly all boil down to security clearance or financial restriction.

Here's an important distinction: credit scores are restrictive on the individual. In other words, credit scores regulate what you're able to do with your finances.

The American government also has a history of implementing other scores that more closely resemble a social credit score. These include but are not limited to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG). These metrics are used by the American government to impose regulations and taxation on corporations for better or for worse. You can tell it works too, because companies often increase their DEI score through their marketing, which is why you see so many corporations pushing a moral agenda rather than advertising their products.

So, the American fed uses various scoring systems to regulate both individuals and corporations.

In conclusion, these companies need to be regulated since they basically control people’s destinies through a non-democratically controlled system.

Just to quickly get this out of the way, my comment that you're responding to already directly refuted the second half of this statement when I said "all BLK shares have voting rights, meaning that shareholders of BlackRock have a say in the company’s affairs in line with the proportion of ownership they hold in the firm." The fact that this has not led to the results you desire doesn't mean they aren't democratic, they demonstrably are. It means that the democratic method was insufficient in this case.

The more important point here, is that to ask the government to regulate corporations in order to get rid of credit scores will lead to the exact opposite conclusion you want. The government already uses credit scores, and they use it to control people. Giving them the avenue to implement corporate social credit scores would be an extremely bad idea.

Also, top down regulation over a corporate body will directly result in greater control over that corporate body (regulation is control). We don't want the government to have too much control over corporate bodies that already have control over us. We don't want to put ourselves closer to being a nation controlled by corporations that are controlled by the state. That is called fascism.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Have a nice day :)

(1/2)

Hi, Lemmy is giving me the infinite spinning wheel when I try to reply, so I'm gonna try to send it in two. Hope you don't mind that I have a lot to say in response to your comment haha

I think you’re overlooking that they are publicly traded companies.

That has not been overlooked at all. It's because they are publicly traded that they are publicly owned. It would be strange to conclude publicly traded -> privately owned without expanding on it at all. I will elaborate on this.

It’s a bit of a stretch to say that because they’re publicly traded that means things are a-ok with them assigning scores to people.

At no point did I say this was okay. My comment was entirely descriptive and made no prescription for scoring citizens. I actually later said that the corporate structure was vulnerable to these scores, which would imply that I think it's a problem.

In conclusion, these companies need to be regulated since they basically control people’s destinies through a non-democratically controlled system.

To which I would say they already are regulated and this is the result.

I'll explain everything in more detail...

Private Ownership:

• the fact of being owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body. (I googled "define private ownership")
• Private companies are owned by those who establish them and those invited to invest in them. The public-at-large cannot buy shares or otherwise invest in private companies at their own discretion. Public Ownership:
• A public company is a company that has sold a portion of itself to the public via an initial public offering (IPO), meaning shareholders have a claim to part of the company's assets and profits. (Same source)
• ownership by the government of an asset, corporation, or industry. (I googled "define public ownership")

So, private ownership is opposed to both the state and public bodies, implying that a public body isn't necessarily a state (according to google). This complicates things once you get into the nature of corporations and their relationship with the government (I'll expand on this), so a better operating definition is probably the second one, which means: it is private if the general public can't by shares.

Countless definitions refer to public ownership both as government ownership, or publicly traded. Choosing one definition does not contradict the other. Let me repeat : saying public ownership refers to government ownership does not contradict that it also refers to publicly traded ownership. This is why it's wrong to conclude that these corporations are private. They are public traded, and are therefor public. This shouldn't be surprising, it's in the word. That which is public is not private, and that which is private is not public.

People get caught up on the fact that private citizens can own shares. It's often used to conclude that the corporation they hold shares in a therefor privately owned. This is flawed logic, because private units can be a part of a public collective. When referencing a public corporation's ownership, we are not referencing any single individual, but a collective, in the exact same way that "the public" refers to a collective of private citizens of a state. It's also directly contradicted in the definition: "... owned by a private individual or organization." A. Singular.

The only point I'm trying to make is that asserting these entities are private is false and leads to false conclusions. This is true.

The reason I didn't address the government issue first is because the relationship between government and corporate is a lot more complicated than that, and the conversation almost always gets cut short by the assumption that corporations are private.

I also just finished explaining how the government does influence credit scores. If you're so focused on this point, why did you ignore that?

Are you gonna keep ignoring the comment as a whole?

You're the one muddying the waters, intent is not the only thing that matters. He directly said private, and that has implications that make his comment come off as frankly detached from reality.

His comment directly suggests that the government is not involved with these credit scores, which is incorrect since the white house did an executive order enforcing DEI in the federal workforce.

His comment suggests that these companies are free from the influence of the state, which is wrong because the government has full authority to and actively incentivizes ESG credit scores.

His comment suggests that independent private industry is strong-arming the government, when the reality is these very same scores they blame on private business are actively snuffing out non-corporate business, which will only make the problem worse

just private companies that decided to collect everyone's information

This is what he said. He called them private. No, it didn't sound like he called them private, he did call them private. It's a distinction I consider important, so I outlined why. You're just wrong in your characterization of what happened, straight up.

Don't pretend he didn't call them private. And don't pretend it isn't super common to think of corporations as private entities. They're not, and this mischaracterization affects how people think. It's not good to base your worldview on lies.

You called them private companies, and I'm disputing that.

This distinction is important, because the properties that make it non-private (being owned by a public collective) also happen to make people particularly vulnerable to spyware and data collection. That which is owned by a public corporation is owned by its shareholders collectively. Major shareholders can therefor lobby corporations to divulge data that is technically legally theirs. When you consider how many corporations Black Rock and Vanguard are invested in, there isn't much that you can touch without generating some meta-data level evidence of what you're doing, where, and when that they won't have access to.

If things were truly privately controlled, nobody would be able to lobby a bank to divulge information about its clients.