Talk:Corporatocracy/Archive 2

Corporatism has NOTHING to do with rule of business corporations, it is politics that views society as a body (Latin: corpus)
Whoever keeps adding corporatism to the "see also" section needs to stop. Corporatism is not business corporation-controlled politics, it is about politics that views society as being alike to an organic body (Latin: corpus) with sub-bodies within it. Yes corporatism has sub-body entities called "corporations" - but in the European use of the word it does not exclusively mean business corporations, but rather it means an interest group organized into an institution - essentially a guild or a syndicate. I remember what by Political Science professor warned me and other students on corporatism when we studied it: "when you write your exam, please remember that corporatism is not about big business, if you write that it is based on business controlling politics I will give you a grade of F" - F as in "failure", which is what those users here who cannot be bothered to look up a reliable source on corporatism deserve. --R-41 (talk) 18:07, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Merge into Plutocracy article - the reliable material that is
After some time, there is no evidence that this term "corporatocracy" being in any English language dictionary or official encyclopedia, thus it has entered the mainstream English language and is a neologism. Neologisms states: "Articles on neologisms are commonly deleted, as these articles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term. As Wiktionary's inclusion criteria differ from Wikipedia's, that project may cover neologisms that Wikipedia cannot accept. You may wish to contribute an entry for the neologism to Wiktionary instead."

"Some neologisms can be in frequent use, and it may be possible to pull together many facts about a particular term and show evidence of its usage on the Internet or in larger society. To support an article about a particular term or concept we must cite what reliable secondary sources, such as books and papers, say about the term or concept, not books and papers that use the term. An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs, books, and articles that use the term rather than are about the term) are insufficient to support articles on neologisms because this may require analysis and synthesis of primary source material to advance a position, which is explicitly prohibited by the original research policy."

I support converting this article to a redirect to the article Plutocracy - that is a well-established term about government systems based on rule of the wealthy. Material on business corporation-led plutocracy could be added into a new section in the plutocracy article.--R-41 (talk) 01:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I oppose a merger. Plutocracy. Corporatocracy. Two different terms. The second one emphasizes corporations as the power wielders; plutocracy emphasizes the wealthy as being the power wielders. Different concepts.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:25, 22 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The intro currently states "The elite engaging in corporatocracy is sometimes termed the 1 percent" - I presume this means the wealthiest 1 percent. Do you have sources for evidence that demonstrates this difference you claim.--R-41 (talk) 01:29, 22 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Plutocracy has been used to describe ancient government systems in which the wealthy controlled the state, such as ancient Rome (particularly the Senate during the Republic years), ancient Carthage, Venice, even some ancient Greek city-states. But nobody would describe any of these as corporatocracies, simply because corporations had not been around during those times. Rather, corporations are a modern phenomenon, dating back only a hundred years or so; and corporatocracy differs from plutocracy as targeting corporations as the focus of attention -- corporations controlling governments; rather than wealthy individuals or families controlling governments. Two different terms.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:37, 22 April 2012 (UTC)


 * But business corporation-led plutocracy is argued to exist today. You are confusing the historical development - it is not that it began at the same time as plutocracy, just as the political ideology of communism did not begin at the same time as its root ideology of socialism. It is a form of plutocracy that has developed. It is a mistake to associate the entity of the business corporation as controlling government - it is just a structure - it requires animation through leadership figures and people to operate and maintain it. Furthermore, it is not all the individuals within the corporation in their entirety who benefit from this system - the workers in the McDonald's restaurant chain typically do not make much else but minimum wage. This article clearly indicates that the purpose is to serve those wealthy owners of the business corporations - the business corporation is a vehicle for the owners to accumulate mass amounts of wealth - and their dominance of wealth is the reason that they have their power in politics. Thus it is clearly a modern form of plutocracy.--R-41 (talk) 03:05, 22 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Interesting argument. I agree with much of what you say, but I think it is more complex than this, overall. The owners of corporations are not just a few wealthy individuals, but stockholders in general, and these people can include all types who benefit from this arrangement, such as pension holders, people who own shares in stockmarket index funds, workers, retirees, mid-level employees, activists, although they control less wealth than the elite as individuals (collectively, they may own more wealth -- it depends on how we look at this). And personally, I think the intellectual construction of the term corporatocracy is rather wanting -- that is, a government controlled by corporations -- kind of along the lines of what you wrote. It is based on rather nebulous ideas: what is control? what is a government? who benefits? And it is difficult to make the leap between "owning" and "controlling" -- if a person owns something, does he or she control it? Tough issues. If it is difficult enough to look at a person as "good" or "bad", or to examine the morality of an action, then how can we examine the goodness or badness of an entire system -- the political economy of a country? And there is the pejorative element to the term corporatocracy which I find wanting. Still, what we need to think of is Wikipedia's rules, and we need to keep our opinions out of this; rather, it is what the Jeffrey Sachs and Naomi Wolf's say it is, or how they use it, or the Occupy protesters, and we can chronicle what is going on. If we try to merge this, then someone will come along and say well, hey, why not merge communism into socialism, since communism appears to be a modern form (or political expression) of the ideology of socialism? And this will look odd to most readers. Similarly, it will look odd to try to merge corporatocracy into plutocracy. They are distinct terms. Yes, there are interconnections, and it appears one is an offshoot of another. The test would be substitution without a change of meaning, that is, do sources such as Sachs and Wolf use the terms interchangeably, as synonyms? And they don't. So, I don't think it will fly. Just my two cents.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:42, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Content issue
This article is written in a very poor style. It's mainly because this article uses indirect phrasing, assumptions, weasel wording, and synthesis. There is a lot assumption-like statements and words such as, "A corporatocracy is viewed as anti-democratic or opposed to democracy..." Who is viewing this? Is this part even necessary? Use direct phrasing, not some indirect phrase bullshit.

2) "A corporatocracy is a situation in which...." what situation? Is this how the sources define it? This is another sentence that needs to be rewritten.

3) "A corporatocracy represents what some see as economic exploitation" Again, who are the people saying this? Is it necessary to word it like this? This needs a rewrite as well.

4) "The term corporatocracy is a negative term, likened pejoratively to cancer, fascism, and Orwellianism, perhaps because, according to this view..." The phrase here is not a good wording. The way it is written, this sentence is utilizing synthesis. This also needs to be rewritten.

5) "While there appears to be no definitive evidence of who coined the term corporatocracy, the term..." Is this phrase really necessary? We can just make it concise and state what the sentence is trying to say, instead of making an assumption.

These are just some of the issues in this article, please comment on this. - M0rphzone (talk) 01:15, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it might be helpful if I explain it this way, so please try to bear with me. About maybe a year ago I was reading a book by Jeffrey Sachs, a fairly prominent economist, and liked much of what he wrote, and then I came upon a whole chapter about "Corporatocracy". I wondered: what was that? An SAT word? How come I didn't know it? So I looked it up -- Wikipedia had a wobbly effort on it at the time. So I was prepared to research it, expecting to find few references and perhaps propose an AfD or PROD. What I found, to my surprise, was several dozen references but no formal dictionary definitions. And the pageview struck me as odd too -- over 200+ pageviews per day (sometimes 500+/day even). So I researched it using the term "corporatocracy" doing several newspaper and media passes. I revamped the article. But I tried to keep my own personal POV out. For your information, my personal viewpoint is that there is no such thing as a corporatocracy -- I am nonpartisan and generally see political subjects as rather complex. But that is irrelevant. What matters, as I have been trying to tell people here, is what Jeffrey Sachs thinks it is, or Naomi Wolf, or the textbook definition. And how it is used. And what the people mean (or try to mean) when they use the term. So I did the best I could with the writing. And I was trying to get at the different senses of the definition since -- as we probably all agree -- it is not tightly defined. And it's a tough one to write. For example, if I say that a "Corporatocracy is X, Y and Z" well, then it implies that corporatocracies do, in fact, exist; but this is original research -- nobody really knows whether or not corporatocracies exist. That is, "we don't know whether corporatocracies exist" is the neutral position, and I hope others here will agree about this. Right? As a result, to try my best to keep sounding neutral, I used wordings such as "is viewed as..." and "likened pejoratively..." and "is a situation in which..." and so forth to try to describe that for those people who use the term, that is how they tend to think about the term. Got it? I tried to find out who coined the term, couldn't find the source, so I put that in that I didn't know who coined the term (I have a guess only -- I had to leave that out -- again, my personal POV.) Maybe if you are a better writer than me, you can help improve the wording? My sense is that if anyone is interested in rewriting this article, the first place to start is to read the references -- see how it is being used -- and do the work -- then, try to take a stab at it. Good luck. You may find yourself using the same forms of speech that I ended up using. :) --Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:58, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for explaining why you wrote it that way. But using the sources to cite specific facts, yet making uncited claims (as in not what the sources say) within the sentence that is written is synthesis. What you did IS original research. I suggest not making synthesized original research statements when you add content like that with misused citations. - M0rphzone (talk) 03:22, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The lead sentence already has issues. Adding the word "unhealthy" to describe the term is synthesis; that's not what's said in the source. - M0rphzone (talk) 03:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Here's another example of synthesis: "corporatocracy is a negative term, with similar connotations as the word cancer, fascism, and Orwellianism, perhaps because, according to this view, business-government ties are seen as..." "Perhaps because" is synthesis. This sentence is synthesis because a bunch of different facts is being put together into a sentence in order to advance a claim. Even if these likenesses are cited, the whole sentence as a whole is not what the sources say. The sentence is unnotable anyways - writing about the negativeness of the term is not important; what the corporations seem like is important. - M0rphzone (talk) 03:49, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Another issue is this article is written in a news report style. - M0rphzone (talk) 04:07, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * R-41 has already brought up this content issue countless times, yet nothing was done about it. I've rewritten the synthesized statements and made the sentences more concise as well as removing any form of reporting. - M0rphzone (talk) 04:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The bottom line is that corporatocracy is a neologism and thus per Neologisms it should either be renamed, moved to a related article, or deleted - corporatocracy is a recently created word that has not yet solidified in mainstream English, there is no English language dictionary that explains what corporatocracy is. The "Concept" section is terribly written and remains in violation of WP:SYNTHESIS - there is no evidence that one author used in one reference supports the claims made a few words later in a reference by another author in the same sentence. Corporate plutocracy are two separate existing words - I thought it was a compromise - but since the critics here are now claim that these two words when combined are a neologism, then the only solution I see was my original proposition to merge this article into the Plutocracy article in its own section (per the reasons I have described in previous discussion sections on this matter). I believe a RfC should be made through appropriate Wikipedia channels to bring in other non-involved users to address this issue - I am not familiar how to request this on Wikipedia though, can anyone else request the RfC? The vote should be on moving the relevent topic and theme of this article to a section with the Plutocracy article because the name of the present article is a neologism and an attempt to create an alternate name was rejected.--R-41 (talk) 21:57, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Synthesis? Then fix it. The references can probably be used, but separately.


 * Merging into Plutocracy is not "the only solution", and it would be the wrong/OR solution. The word has nothing to do with plutocracy (about people). Linguistically it has to do with "corporate" "rule", IOW an unhealthy dominance/influence/control of the government by corporations. While it's often true that the uber rich (plutocrats) are involved with corporations, it's not always true. This concept focuses on corporations, rather than individuals. That's what's inherent in the word. If we were to abandon the current title, we should opt for Corporate rule (or a synonym.... like corporatocracy...;-). That would open the article up for inclusion of sources that also refer to corporate rule and influence on governments. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:51, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * "We should opt for Corporate rule or a synonym" - That's what I said! But it continued to be ignored before. I think this article subject could be titled using a noun phrase like fixed-wing aircraft. (And I already tried fixing the issues as well; it should be a bit better than it was originally). - M0rphzone (talk) 00:01, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Also, there is no formal definition - this is a neologism. Even if this term has been used by people, it does not mean that the actual thing exists or is notable. Trying to write an article like this using undefined concepts is quite idiotic, and I'd rather not do that. I suggest merging to an existing article like R-41 proposed. - M0rphzone (talk) 22:43, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I think you're forgetting the purpose of Wikipedia - to document the sum total of human knowledge. That includes ideas, delusions, rumors, facts, things, people, events, etc., IOW anything that is notable enough to have been mentioned in RS. This subject certainly qualifies because it's notable. It is an accusation and description, and opinions differ as to whether it is effectuated fully or only partially in the USA. As to merging, I have commented immediately above. A merge to plutocracy would be OR. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:56, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Corporatocracy is a neologism - it is in no official English language dictionary. Wikipedia opposes articles on neologisms and neologism titles. That is the issue, fix it.--R-41 (talk) 14:32, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Stepping back and looking at things
The charge that corporatocracy-is-a-neologism has been countered by numerous fact-based arguments. Merely repeating the neologism charge adds nothing; rather, the counter-arguments need to be refuted or shown to be irrelevant. To reiterate, the counter-arguments are: several dozen WP:RS citations, inclusion in a textbook, use by prominent academics, pageview counts 200+ per day (a real neologism gets few pageview counts, by definition, since few people know the term). These facts suggest the term has become accepted into mainstream language and is no longer a neologism as such. In linguistics, many terms begin as neologisms (like preschoolers?) but after they catch on, they are no longer neologisms since they've "graduated". But whether corporatocracy is an elementary schooler or a teenager, who knows.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

What may be interesting to people on both sides of this debate is examining the history of the Wikipedia article. The entry in Wikipedia goes back to November 2001; so the term is at least 12 years old. And, back then, perhaps one could maybe say that the term was then a neologism -- and maybe early Wikipedians were in part responsible for foisting this term on the public? Or maybe the no-neologisms rule had not been invented yet? There is definitely an opportunity for us, writing here in 2012, to wag our fingers at 2001-era Wikipedians, possibly for floating a neologism, which would be much fun, like a giant collective "oops" for Wikipedia. But, this is all speculation. The early renditions of corporatocracy had few references. But, whatever; that was then; we can not undo the past by wiping out the definition now. And, let's try to prevent reoccurrences of the mistake, by not foisting any new neologisms on the poor under-vocabularied public.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

It is instructive to look at past Wikipedia versions of the term. There are many. I picked out versions from the article history file:--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * "Corporotocracy (or Corporocracy) is a perjorative term coined by proponents of anti-globalisation to describe a government bowing to "pressure" from corporate entities. The term has no real meaning in terms of political theory, as a corporation is nothing more than a body of individuals, ruled by a democratically elected governing body and executives appointed by that body."

- Wikipedia, November 2001


 * "Corporatocracy (sometimes corporocracy) is a neologism coined by proponents of the Global Justice Movement to describe a government bowing to pressure from corporate entities."

- Wikipedia January 2008


 * "Corporatocracy or Corpocracy is a form of government where a corporation, group of corporations or entities run by corporations, control the direction and governance of a country. Though there are no true corporatocracies in the world, there are a number of people who have criticized governments for being de facto corporatocracies. However, thoroughly proving this would likely be difficult at best and the idea of a corporatocracy is mainly discussed in the circles of left-wing thinkers."

- Wikipedia, February 2009


 * "Corporatocracy or corpocracy is a form of government where corporations, conglomerates or government entities with private components, control the direction and governance of a country. This belief has two factors: campaign finance and special interests, also includes government ownership."

- Wikipedia, March 2010


 * "Corporatocracy, in social theories that focus on conflicts and opposing interests within society, denotes a system of government that serves the interest of, and may be run by, corporations and involves ties between government and business. Where corporations, conglomerates, and/or government entities with private components, control the direction and governance of a country, including carrying out economic planning notwithstanding the 'free market' label."

- Wikipedia, February 2011


 * "A corporate plutocracy or corporatocracy is a situation in which corporate bodies interact with sovereign power in an unhealthy alignment between business and political power.[1] In a corporate plutocracy an elite upper-class,[2] maintains ties between business and government,[1][3] sometimes by lobbying efforts[4][5] or funding political advertising campaigns,[6] or providing bailouts when corporations are seen as too big to fail,[7] for the purpose of controlling government[2] and dictating policy to serve its financial interests.[5]"

- Wikipedia, May 2012

And, judging by the past history, some patterns emerge. There is debate about whether a corporatocracy, as such, exists; it is a pejorative term -- an accusation usually by the left leveled at the right; the political orientations of the Wikipedians working on this article will skew how they see the term. While there has been disagreement about what the term itself means, the constants seem to be: corporate rule, negative, form of government, link between corporations and government, pejorative term, left-leaning viewpoint. No doubt the term is politically charged; just saying the word corporatocracy makes a left-leaning statement of some sort. More important: it is almost impossible for us to try to contribute to this article without getting our political biases involved.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

What's interesting to me is the traffic statistics. Wikipedia began doing traffic statistics in December 2007, so we don't have numbers for the 2001 to 2007 years. Here are selected numbers for the article:--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * 2007 December 80/day
 * 2008 January 80/day
 * 2008 Feb    180/day
 * 2008 Mar    200/day
 * 2009 Jun    220/day
 * 2010 Feb    180/day
 * 2010 Jun    130/day
 * 2011 Sep    270/day
 * 2011 Nov    500/day
 * 2012 May    200/day

There seems to be a fairly steady baseline amount of attention, perhaps 100/day, but it increases possibly with left-leaning activity such as the Occupy movement, which became more pronounced in the fall of 2011. But, if one takes a step back from the ruckus, and looks at the bigger picture, it seems like there will be much interest in the term for the foreseeable future, much continued back-and-forth battling about what the term means, much rewriting, much wrangling, very little likelihood that any of us will ever settle the issue once and for all, new people jumping into the argument, and wonderful opportunities for well-meaning people of all political stripes to waste horrendous amounts of time on this very very stupid innocuous seemingly-important non-subject. :) --Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:14, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Traffic on Wikipedia articles does not in anyway legitimize the material on the articles. One of the reasons for this could be that on Wikipedia people who mistakenly view corporatism as business corporation politics, go to the article to review it and see the redirect at the top of the page to "corporatocracy" - that is major reason for what is causing people to view this article. Again, the bottom line is that corporatocracy is a neologism - there is no definition of it in any official English language dictionary. The solution here promoted here has been quite reasonable: rather than delete the article as other neologisms have, merging the material into a section in the Plutocracy article recognizes that such a form of politics exists. The only problem is the name - the current name is a neologism, plutocracy is a well-established term and critics of business corporation dominated politics in the US such as Ralph Nader say that the United States has become a business corporation-led plutocracy.--R-41 (talk) 14:27, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree article traffic, per se, does not, in and of itself, make any particular subject legitimate, according to Wikipedia's official rules. In practice, however, the situation is quite different. Article traffic is an excellent indication of interest in a term, and it can be important, particularly if you view each one of those people who typed in corporatocracy, and then clicked on Wikipedia, as like a customer seeking information about what the term means. Think of it like a constituency. These people want to know: what does the term mean? Further, each reader could be considered as a potential adversary to any of us possibly considering deleting the article or redirecting it to some other term such as plutocracy. Take it away, or redirect it, and this risks annoying them. It is like trying to stop a stampede. Whether we like it or not, some will complain, refloat the article, cause new (and never-ending battles) here at Wikipedia. And the constant battling will continue. --Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:48, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Plus, there are more definitions in addition to the textbook one and the Urban Dictionary one:--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:48, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * "kôrpərəˈtäkrəsē/ .... a society or system that is governed or controlled by corporations"

- Oxford Dictionaries


 * "(Noun,) Rule by corporations."

- Glosbe

The term is definitely used, but has differing meanings. Of course there is a way for editors not to get their political biases involved. We can just not think about the terms on the personal level and focus on the content issue instead.... especially since I'm relatively inexperienced in politics/political views, and I don't understand nor involve myself in all the left/right nonsense. Right now, I look at the article and I see the major issues. It uses too many assumptions in trying to maintain the POV of all sides and it pulls together too many topics into single sentences. What I think we should do is get rid of these issues, and just state the facts/content (and all the different "definitions") itself and let the readers decide what to feel about it. But of course... this will take some copy-editing /rewording. And Tom, can you explain why you use "tws" in the ref names? Is it for some special ordering or just a handy abbreviation for something? - M0rphzone (talk) 23:55, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Hey feel free to go ahead and try to get the wording right. Condensing is probably a good idea; usually removing references is not. If people rework it, I think looking to previous versions is a good idea, since it incorporates the wisdom of others here, going back 11 years, and the lede paragraph should probably have things about -- corporate rule, negative, form of government, link between corporations and government, pejorative term, left-leaning viewpoint. Is there a way to indicate that most people even saying the word corporatocracy is a kind of left-leaning politically charged statement? Maybe even adding something that it is not a formal academic term by any means. Whatever you choose, it is like walking on a minefield. I see myself as "nonpartisan" but even that, in itself, is a kind of bias. About "tws" -- my initials, and it serves a dual purpose -- I give most references unique names to avoid confusion if I should use a reference repeatedly -- plus it tells me the reference is a good one (so if I come back to an article years later, I usually won't have to check it again). Others who write extensively (like I do here at WP) often have similar conventions. I've been writing here at WP for several years now and I have developed a slew of shortcuts which enable me to write new articles or revamp existing ones quickly using good references.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:45, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Now that evidence has been provided a reference has been provided from an English language dictionary from the reputable Oxford dictionary, that disproves my assumption that it was not in an English language dictionary. However the second dictionary source does not appear like an official reputable dictionary. An English language dictionary definition is what I requested and now that it has been provided through Oxford dictionary, I do not have a problem with the article title. Thus I rescind my proposal to merge the article and accept the article being maintained provided that the Oxford dictionary definition is used in the intro and that the WP:SYNTHESIS in this article is completely removed. The matter of synthesis remains a serious issue in this article.--R-41 (talk) 15:39, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * You know.. you could have looked it up yourself first. And I still think another phrase - maybe a 2 to 3-word phrase - can better describe this article subject. - M0rphzone (talk) 22:39, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I tried looking it up on multiple dictionaries, and did not find it, I missed the Oxford dictionary that Tomwsculcer found. Unlike other Wikipedia users I've encountered in the past, when I get proven wrong, rather than getting embarassed or defensive about it by using vain attempts merely to uphold a dying old argument, I just accept that I was wrong and adjust my stance accordingly. My concern has been addressed, so my work here is done on the title issue. The serious issue that remains here is WP:SYNTHESIS, and it is severe in this article, I don't know where or how to rewrite it in the way the original editors who added it intended it to be interpreted.--R-41 (talk) 04:12, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Tom was the one who contributed like 12000 bytes into the article and added all the citations, but unfortunately combined the cited facts into synthesized statements when he tried to represent the topic from all sides of the issue. But the article is still better right now than before that huge edit. Like I said, I already tried fixing; maybe you can give it as shot - doesn't hurt to try. - M0rphzone (talk) 05:21, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposed rewrite June 2012
The term Corporatocracy is clever, but is not widely used. An encyclopedia does not need to explain every little detail of a seldom-used term when there are ample links to terminology on this page that take the reader to the concepts used more frequently, especially in political debates.Chip.berlet (talk) 17:15, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 19:07, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Chip.berlet, thanks for fixing the issues with the article. Now it's much more neutral and provides simple, factual statements of the term instead of presenting differing opinions and usage of the term like a blog or news article does. - M0rphzone (talk) 05:01, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * ??? Encyclopedia articles aren't supposed to simply define terms and their usage, they're supposed to cover an encyclopedic topic. Whatever the faults of the article before you started chopping, it was actually an encyclopedia article.Embrittled (talk) 18:55, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I wrote much of the pre-chop version, but at the same time, I respect when people want to chop and get in the mood to excise verbiage like shearing overgrown plants. This is such a volatile topic that I've given up trying to side with any version, expanded or chopped, and rather prefer to watch with bemused amusement at what happens here. :) And if there is any benefit to the shorter version, it is perhaps that there will be less statistical chance of tags being applied willy nilly. I still am kinda wondering how to pronounce the darn term -- is it cor-purr-ah-TOCK-ruh-see? Or CORE-PURR-uh-TOCK-ruh-see.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:42, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * No it wasn't even an encyclopedia article. There's too many issues with the way the content was presented, so it's better to leave them out than have an unbalanced article. And Tom, I think it's the first pronunciation. Also, the fact that there really isn't a good pronunciation for this word kinda shows how it's a neologism anyways... - M0rphzone (talk) 20:46, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Historical corporatocracies
The companies/corporations themselves should not be included, as corporatocracy is "(the) RULE or DOMINANCE BY/OF corporations". Therefore, only the states/polities that were under their control should be listed. ZFT (talk) 18:45, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

The Characteristics section does not describe corporatocracy
The lede of the article rightly states that corporatocracy "is different from corporatism, which is the organisation of society into groups with common interest." The article then goes on to describe "corporatism," as defined by Edmund Phelps, in the Characteristics section. This is wrong. This bleeds into other sections: "In the United States, several of the characteristics described by Phelps are apparent." Um, no they are not. In fact, some scholars claim that corporatocracy is a product of neoliberal free market ideology, which is the antithesis of the anti-free market corporatism described by Phelps. The materials pertaining to "corporatism" are misleading and should be removed from the article.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 02:53, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

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Question: Is there any actual evidence of direct corporatocracy in the modern world?
If corporatocracy is a subset definition of plutocracy, which is where a small group of individuals/organizations have complete authoritarian control of government; does corporatocracy even exist at the nation state level?

We have local examples such as Disney in Florida managing an area, but that is within state and federal legislation; and we have examples from the past such as the early trading companies (However, these might be better described as state endorsed monopolies).

There is an implication of direct control in the term if it is derived from other related terms, the direct government of people. I see aggressive lobbying in particular areas of government by corporations and their representatives. However, at what stage did lobbying become government. In addition, the corporate lobbying is usually on specific areas of government, not across the whole policy spectrum of ruling a country.

The question is then is corporatocracy actual direct government by a corporation/corporations or just the annoyed parties description of aggressive lobbying? Is it right that the term is even grouped with plutocracy or oligarchy; as it would appear to be an aberration with no direct relationship to those original forms of government.

If we go down this route we could create: Enviroarchy; Greenocracy; as the counter views and antitheses. However, I don't think that anyone would argue that these are a form of government, which is effectively being cited to corporatocracy.

Not sure that this helps, but hopefully it does describe the potential dilemma associated with this term and its roots. I would welcome other opinions on this term92.24.60.218 (talk) 11:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Is Corporatocracy therefore (if it is worthy of definition and inclusion): Aggressive lobbying by corporations or their representatives, implying unworthy successful influence over government. The term is often derogatory; implying that the successful lobbying is contrary to the greater good (interests of the people) that the government should represent.92.24.60.218 (talk) 11:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)


 * You seem to be operating under some misconceptions and wrong definitions. This gives the appearance of using straw man fallacies and unfavorable POV. Please see footnote 2, "Corporatocracy". Oxford Dictionaries. Retrieved May 29, 2012, and other definitions to answer several of your objections.


 * Other questions and assumptions here seem akin to "Trump is obviously crooked,"...seemingly matters of opinion. Also the lead section's overemphasis of it as mostly "criticism of..." is also unsupported, and wrong. As is your criticism there are no pure corporatocracies, (so delete the article?).  No economic system is pure.  You may want to familiarize yourself with regulatory capture or https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Corporatocracy before assuming so much regarding lobbying or how real moving towards corporatocracy may be.  --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:515:AFC6:BC9C:6C06 (talk) 23:53, 1 February 2020 (UTC)Just Saying

This article is in violation of WP:SYNTHESIS, has original research, and the title is a neologism
There is barely a sentence in this article that is finished with a single reference at the end, but rather is jumbled up with references half way in the sentences. This is in clear violation of WP:SYNTHESIS - it is fusing different references by different authors into a single sentence in which the entire claim of the sentence is not verifiable to any single source. This article is badly written and contains a lot of original research from primary sources, in violation of WP:OR. Lastly as I have said before this term is in no English language dictionary - it is a neologism - meaning it is a new word that is not yet universally accepted as a term in the English language - Wikipedia opposes the use of neologisms as per Avoid neologisms and supports deleting material involving neologisms. No evidence was presented in previous discussions by users who supported this term that this term is accepted in English language dictionaries. I recommend deleting this neologism article and merging relevant material involving business corporation-based plutocracy into the article on plutocracy.--R-41 (talk) 18:22, 1 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, puh-leeze. What two ideas were so notoriously "fused" to form some totally new idea which does not have a reference? Hmmmmm? Your claims that the article is a neologism have been answered before; you have added nothing new to this discussion. As I said, why not AfD or PROD it, if you feel so certain of yourself.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:34, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No, fusing several references together in such a jigsaw puzzle manner of piecing them together in sections is in clear violation of WP:SYNTHESIS - because it fuses several claims by different authors together to make a combined statement that is not attributed to the several authors. I am not yet posting it in the AfD because I am willing to accept its use if use in an English language dictionary or an official encyclopedia is discovered. Secondly, my claims were responded to and disputed but no one provided any evidence of use of the term "corporatocracy" in any English language dictionary. I have searched a number and have found no use of the term - it should be regarded as a neologism unless evidence can be found that this term is used in an English language dictionary or an official encyclopedia.--R-41 (talk) 17:55, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Sigh. You didn't answer my question: which two ideas were fused? And what was the "new" original research that resulted from such joining of the two ideas? Hmmmmmm? The idea of banning neologisms in Wikipedia is related to original research: that is, the idea is to prevent a situation in which Wikipedians invent some phrase or term, and then misuse Wikipedia's presence to popularize the term. But Wikipedians did not invent the term corporatocracy. Others did. And its already caught on. And the reason you are not posting this article to AfD is because you know it will be a waste of time. Last, the mere test of whether a word appears or does not appear in an online dictionary is not proof that it is is a neologism.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:10, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * "A neologism 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." So just because the term is entering into usage in some places, that does not mean that it has entered the mainstream language. Plus there appears to be no cohesive definition of what "corporatocracy" even means - aside from implying that it is a business corporation-led plutocracy, it does describe it clearly nor indepth. The violation of Wikipedia:Synthesis is that it is combining sentences to make a single statement not necessarily supported by all the authors. For instance, this sentence from the article: "It describes an elite,[3] sometimes termed the "1 percent",[2][4][5][6] which maintains ties between business and government,[2][6] sometimes by lobbying efforts[4][7] or funding political advertising campaigns,[8] or providing bailouts when corporations are seen as too big to fail,[9] for the purpose of controlling government[3] and dictating policy to serve its financial interests.[7]" - there is no evidence that I can see that the author of reference #3 necessarily agrees with the statements by the authors of references #2, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, or #9. It is creating a fused synthesis sentence that as a whole does not appear to be supported by each of the authors - unless you can provide evidence that each of the authors support the statements in this sentence in its entirety, in which case the references should be placed at the end of the sentence. The synthesis sentences have to be broken up.--R-41 (talk) 00:17, 20 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Suppose I write this sentence separated by commas: Trees exist,[1] grasses exist,[2] cars exist,[3] horses exist.[4] It is really separate ideas, each one with a reference. But nothing new is created. The references denote specifically each idea. And that's all the above sentence which you described did about the "describes an elite...". For example, the sentence which you see as problematic can be written as stand-alone sentences, each with a reference, and it would be perfectly fine. The meaning wouldn't change. The only purpose of having multiple phrases within one sentence is to make the writing easier to read -- for flow. No big woof. The meaning does not change whether you break up the sentence fragments. The idea of original research is when you or I take two (perhaps referenced) ideas, and combine them to make some new thought. We yank together disparate things but essentially create something new. For example, suppose we write: trees exist[1] because grass exists[2]. That's a new thought. It's us doing research. It wasn't there before. There is no source that says explicitly that trees exist because grass exists. And this is the basic idea behind a neologism too -- whereas the word is not commonly accepted, but you or me, by placing the word in Wikipedia, causes people to think that it is more widely accepted than it is, that is, we are creating something new. It's not our job to push new words into the popular vocabulary. We should not coin words or phrases. But all I've been trying to tell you, and I doubt you're listening much, is that neither you nor I nor anybody here at Wikipedia coined the term corporatocracy. Others in the real world did. I read it with my own eyes in a book I borrowed from the library -- not some obscure book, but a popular book by a famous economist. He devoted a whole chapter to using the term corporatocracy. The references chronicle the usage. The term was is in a textbook as a definition. It was widely used at political rallies. The idea is, for us, to try to chronicle what is meant by the term. That's all. You sound angry about all this, so if you must, put it up for AfD, and let the community decide, but after it decides, will you agree with the community's decision?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:15, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * This is not about a list of things that "exist" - and you do not need references to say that trees exist - that is common knowledge, the sentence I quoted here from this article is constructing a fused synthesis argument that is not attributable to each one of the authors. The sections of the sentence that I quoted either need to be broken up into separate sentences for each claim, or a source should be found that is attributable to the entire sentence. I am not angry about this, I am a bit miffed that no one has yet found an English language dictionary or official encyclopedia that can verify that the term has entered the mainstream language that would resolve the neologism issue altogether. Second of all, I and another user recommended that this material on this phenomenon of business corporation-led plutocracy could be merged into the article Plutocracy.--R-41 (talk) 00:56, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
 * If you are able to provide evidence of the term being used in an English language dictionary or an official encyclopedia the matter will be resolved as it will demonstrate that the term has been used in the mainstream language. I will put an AfD on this if no English language dictionary definition nor official encyclopedia definition can be found, there was no consensus for the last deletion request, though I and another user offered a solution: that the article be merged into the Plutocracy article as a section on business corporation-led plutocracy.--R-41 (talk) 00:17, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Already done so. Please read the article again and check the existing references: an online dictionary source and here is the definition in a textbook --Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:43, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Urban Dictionary is a completely unreliable source that is mostly about slang and profanity, I searched a completely fictional word "ook" and received three results. We don't even know when those were posted on Urban Dictionary, they may have been posted after the Wikipedia article was created.--R-41 (talk) 07:20, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems worthwhile to note that now, in 2020 is eight years later, and all of the alleged problems have been edited and improved if not eliminated. In part this is due to the swelling amounts of new reference material. I agree the article still needs thrust and better organization of the concepts. For example, it seems the history and background should be hardened and moved into the background text. That means it would need new and clearer foreground concepts. Tons of work!

From our buds at MW: -cracy noun combining form  Definition of -cracy  1: form of government also : state having such a form  3: theory of social organization technocracy  --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:515:AFC6:BC9C:6C06 (talk) 08:16, 2 February 2020 (UTC) Just Saying

Any Suggestions & ideas?
I'm impressed how far this article has come! From our buds at MW dictionary:  -cracy noun combining form  Definition of -cracy  1: form of government also : state having such a form  3: theory of social organization  technocracy

Here's some interesting yet encyclopedic ideas:

Of the various forms of government, the "-cracies," democracy, technocracy, corporatocracy, and so on, it is important to understand that there is no true pure actual real form, they are all based on concepts and ideals. It is more useful to think in terms of a current ideological place or a direction toward or away from a given ideal or definition. Additionally many forms of government, such as democracy, have countless variations. They can only be communicated or understood in terms relative to others.
 * "Mises Wiki is a wiki project dedicated to the advancement of the Austrian School of Economics and related thought."

In its simplified form, the concept of corporatocracy is government by firms and corporations that have no external regulating bodies. Corporatocracy is a concept which denotes a system of government that serves the interest of; and may be run by, or merged with corporations; and consists of intimate co-operative relationships between government and business. A corporatocracy is where corporations, conglomerates, and/or government entities with strong private components control the direction and governance of a country. Thus the traditional economic check-and-balance functions of a quasi-adversarial relationship between the two is lost. The economic forces of those unrestricted conditions tend toward increasing profitable economic and social (socio-economic) planning and conditions; notwithstanding the 'free market' label.[1]

Concept The concept of corporatocracy is that private firms to a significant extent "own," or have massive power over, or become governing bodies; including those governments nominally elected by the people; and that they exercise such power not by back-room conspiracies but by their enormous, unobstructed, concentrated economic powers; and by 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 tax paid subsidies etc) as well as more covert methods such as regulatory capture and questionable donations to the law enforcement, legislative and judicial companies, divisions, or agencies.

Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported unless otherwise noted. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Largely From: https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Corporatocracy on Feb 1.

I'd say some of that, with refs could be useful in the lead & intro sections. I also wonder if the article leaves falsely polarizing impressions that these are all liberal ideas because those liberal ideas are more popularly recognized. So popularly unknown Stigler (also Nobel Prize for regulatory capture.) et al should be listed as "conservative" economists; and so forth. And most of the warning tags need to come down, (as explained far above). Any objections or suggestions?  --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:515:AFC6:BC9C:6C06 (talk) 17:35, 2 February 2020 (UTC) Just Saying

Needs Focus, & Corporatization V Corporatocracy ?
I was trying to figure out why the article seems squishy, without direction nor thrust. Then I noticed the second section: "Characteristics," is NOT about Corporatocracy, in fact it does not even contain that word. What!? It's about "corporatization," yet the new term sneaks in ashamed and unannounced, never well defined. (And does history belong in "Characteristics"?) Some of this seems to drool into the later sections. The article not only seems unfocused, it is. The article looks like a dittohead's caricature of silly Lefties blowing steam about an unnamed evil topic...like "corporate power." While related, these are NOT synonyms! The differences should probably be enunciated as part of the definitions. Can we get some focus? "Corporatization - Investopedia -  Corporatization refers to the restructuring or transformation of a state-owned asset or organization into a corporation. These organizations typically have a board of directors, management, and shareholders."     --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:515:AFC6:BC9C:6C06 (talk) 01:44, 3 February 2020 (UTC) Just Saying

Corporatocracy
Corporatocracy is one of two words I submitted for consideration for inclusion in dictionaries in the early 1990s. The other word was polychanelic which I proposed as a descriptive term of someone who channel surfed on cable TV and could not watch just one program at a time.

Before proposing Corporatocracy, I searched widely and found no other use of or evidence of the word. I then began using it online and gradually noted it appearing in other places. Until I find an earlier user who is documented I claim credit as the initiator of the term, and thus the right to specify its definition.

A Corporatocracy is a nation are ruled by the influence and wealth of corporate entities as the primary influencers and directors of political activity and legislative priorities.

Pndrgn99 Pndrgn99 (talk) 18:20, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Can you provide a reliable source for that?&thinsp;&mdash; Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)&thinsp; 02:13, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * "the right to specify its definition" is not held by anyone. Definitions change over time. This article should be about the concept of corporatocracy as it's currently understood in the literature and maybe about how the word was used in the past, IF there are sources that talk about that and maybe maybe there should be one line about the very first use of the term, again IF there are sources that talk about that. PJvanMill (talk) 21:53, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Cleanup tags
I'm not sure if I understand these cleanup tags here. Does this article still need to be re-written? Jarble (talk) 01:37, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Probably, though the use of TNT is optional. There is widespread editorializing and other violations of WP:WTW. There are also parts of the article that could possibly constitute WP:COATRACK where the article starts to emphasize the magnitude of U.S. income inequality. Read WTW. Most of the article's problems are violations of it.&thinsp;&mdash; Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)&thinsp; 02:09, 27 February 2019 (UTC)


 * The article has been substantially improved, but yes, it needs better organization and direction. A common Wikipedia failing is assuming expertise or passion can replace the hard work and time needed for effective communication.


 * I intend to remove the following 3 tags if there is no (valid) argument against:


 * 1) This article appears to contradict itself. (August 2015)
 * 2) The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (August 2017)
 * 3) This article is about an event or subject that may not be current but does not specify the time period.


 * The first is uselessly vague, the second has been addressed, the third, non sequitur. (The fourth seems overstated and scatter-shot.)


 * I may need to remind some editors (and readers) that while this topic is about economics, it may trigger all the passions and/or organized propaganda of any minority political position of high economic value, —such as say, government healthcare insurance issues or anthropogenic global warming.  --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:515:AFC6:BC9C:6C06 (talk) 01:07, 2 February 2020 (UTC)Just Saying


 * I don't see any contradictions in the current version, so I agree that one should be removed. The time-context tag also doesn't make sense, as it is very much current. However, given that the "United States" section is half of the article, and the other sections also seem to only mention the US, I think the US-centric tag should not be removed. As I cannot see any justification for the other two tags, I will go ahead and remove them. PJvanMill (talk) 22:31, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Summary of previous discussions & proposed way forward
If I may summarise the discussion so far:
 * this article is an absolute mess
 * lots of un- and improperly sourced content
 * essay-like and not written from a neutral point of view
 * discusses things that are only tangentially related to the topic


 * corporatocracy is not a neologism anymore
 * it has been proposed this article be deleted or merged into Plutocracy, but consensus was never reached
 * corporatism is something very different, although one source uses, and this article used to use, that term to mean the same as corporatocracy

My proposal is: let's just start boldly cutting away all the unsourced or badly sourced and irrelevant stuff and rewriting away all the essayisms. We can do some building up, too, but the main priority should be tearing down. PJvanMill (talk) 00:41, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Sources removed during cleanup
Cleaning up WP:synthesis involves removing references. Here are some sources I removed that may be of value for this article, but were used to support a statement they do not support:
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.
 * We Are The 99.9%, Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 24, 2011.

I might add to this list in the future. PJvanMill (talk) 13:55, 25 February 2020 (UTC)