In the modern world, we see the public faces of success and power. Charismatic CEOs smile on the covers of business magazines, while presidents and prime ministers deliver inspiring speeches about freedom and democracy on our screens. However, that is merely the front stage. The real picture unfolds behind the scenes, where those who own the "majority stake" make the decisions, not those who speak.
Who Is Really Steering the Ship?
In the corporate world, ultimate authority resides with the majority shareholders.
As owners of the main block of shares, majority shareholders elect the board members. The Board appoints and dismisses the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), makes core strategic decisions, and controls the company's direction. If the executive does not fulfill their vision, the board replaces them.
The CEO holds day-to-day operational power. They serve as the face of the company and manage daily operations. Typically, they enjoy operational freedom only as long as results remain strong and stock prices rise. In short: The CEO steers the ship day to day, but the shareholders own the ship and dictate where it sails.
The Political Illusion: The Public vs. Big Money
In politics, this framework operates in the exact same way. Campaign financing during elections is never free—it always comes with unofficial (or secret) commitments.
If we view the public as the small shareholders, then the majority shareholders are the financiers. Society blindly trusts that it alone elects its representatives, but behind the curtain stand the financial sovereigns. Regardless of political speeches on the campaign trail, subsequent actions reveal where the true allegiance lies.
Politicians effectively become "state managers." They run the country day to day, but the laws they write and the contracts they sign are frequently dictated by the economic interests of their major donors.
A basic example from the US:
Lobbying in the US is a multi-billion dollar legal industry that makes political candidates highly dependent on big donors to win elections. Corporations don’t donate out of sympathy—they treat donations as an investment with an expected return.
The military-industrial complex, big banks and financial institutions, pharmaceutical giants, technology corporations, and the energy lobby are among the most influential lobbies that shape policy in Washington.
Foreign policy faces the same pressure from external capital as domestic affairs. While U.S. law strictly prohibits foreign governments or foreign citizens from donating directly to political campaigns, legal loopholes exist.
Through the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), foreign governments officially hire American lobbying firms to exert pressure on Congress and the White House. When major powers sponsor foreign politicians or buy access, national sovereignty diminishes. The leader effectively becomes indebted to their hidden investor.
Who ultimately dictates foreign policy?
It is rarely determined purely by ideals of freedom or democracy but rather by the balance between the interests of the military-industrial complex (seeking defense contracts) and foreign capital acquiring influence through lobbyists.
People often ask who really runs the world. The answer is found not in conspiracy theories, but in following the money and examining the structural facts.
In both business and politics, real power resides with the financial sovereign. Political leaders and corporate executives serve as the visible faces of the brand—they bear public anger during failure and receive praise during success.
The true decision-makers remain out of the frame. They do not run in elections or host press conferences. They own the capital, sign the checks, and set the rules—turning the modern world into one vast joint-stock company.
Author: Sezgin Ismailov
Essentially, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do occasionally that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.
ReplyDeleteAnthony Robbins
The spontaneous reproduction of imposed needs by the individual does not establish autonomy; it only testifies to the efficacy of control.
ReplyDeleteHerbert Marcuse
Most Americans have no real understanding of the workings of international creditors. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.
ReplyDeleteBarry Goldwater
Economic control is inseparable from control over the whole life of the people, because he who controls the means cannot fail to control the ends.
ReplyDeleteFriedrich Hayek
We live in a world that is out of control.
ReplyDeleteUlrich Beck
The only way to take permanent control of your financial life is to dig deep and correct the root problem.
ReplyDeleteSusie Orman
Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to acknowledge that there are times in our history when legality is distinct from morality, we are not simply surrendering control of our rights to the government but also our agency in determining our future.
ReplyDeleteEdward Snowden
One tends to view mistakes as the same thing—giving up control of something at some point in one's career.
ReplyDeleteNick Mason
Optimism springs from the knowledge that you are in control of your own life, not your past and the people around you. Part of control is taking responsibility for how you feel. This means not just acknowledging uncomfortable feelings, but then examining your circumstances to see what can be done to change those feelings at their source.
ReplyDeleteAugustine Burroughs
The remarkable fact is not how much government controls economic activity, but how much it does not.
ReplyDeletePaul Samuelson
First, the people in charge want to give up control. This eliminates about 80 percent of business people. Second, a deep belief that humanity will work towards its best version if given freedom; this would eliminate the other 20 percent.
ReplyDeleteRicardo Semler
The "Austrian" economists, more consistently than those of any other school, have criticized almost all forms of government intervention in the market - especially inflation, price controls, and schemes for the redistribution of wealth or income, because they recognize that they always lead to erosion of incentives, to distortions of production, to shortages, to demoralization, and similar consequences, deplored even by the creators of the schemes.
ReplyDeleteHenry Hazlitt
Science, like technology, will in the near and future shift increasingly from problems of intensity, matter, and energy to problems of structure, organization, information, and control.
ReplyDeleteJohn von Neumann
Any elected government that relies on surveillance to maintain control over citizens who consider surveillance anathema to democracy has ceased to be a democracy.
ReplyDeleteEdward Snowden
It is not God, but man who is destroying the world. We are destroying the world, we are the ones who will burn the world, we have contaminated the waters, the food and everything, we are preparing a world government and control over everyone, we are doing everything.
ReplyDeleteAthanasius of Limassol
You don't have to be rich when you control a nation
ReplyDeleteSezgin
However, even if you are a simpleton, you can manipulate a large number of individuals, establishing their trust and achieving control. What is the point of petty thefts that will ruin you?
ReplyDeleteSezgin
I suspect that politicians and greedy businessmen fail because they believe they have forgotten the finite nature of human life. Sezgin
ReplyDeleteIndeed, I was able to observe individuals who were able to generate income through their own efforts or whom I assisted in facilitating through counseling. I thought they would become more human and moral after that. But I became convinced that suddenly something changes in them, and they become more evil, like the angel in them turns into a devil. Sezgin
ReplyDelete