The capitalist system - a somewhat strained marriage between corporate tyranny and democratic government, represents a way to preserve the dictatorship of wealth while maintaining a facade of public empowerment. The kings and queens, princes and princesses of yesteryear are the founders, presidents, board members, and CEOs of today's corporations. They preside over the hapless rank and file by decree, filling in command structures beneath themselves that are finely tailored so as to be aligned with their own agendas.
Control within corporations is top-down, just as it was with the kingdoms of old. Just as the weighty judgements of a king or queen could lead all their people to prosperity or ruin, so the business decisions of top corporate executives leads all the employees to a fate that is fundamentally not determined by them. The greatest influence that the rank and file have is in how efficiently and quickly a company attains the fate that is determined by the good or bad judgements of executive leadership.
Proponents of top-down corporate rule can point to the number of immensely powerful and successful corporations that dominate world economies. But this is like pointing to the power and influence of various kingdoms of old as a means of justifying this style of rule. The truth is, for every kingdom that once was lucky enough to experience a golden era when a wise and benificent dictator may have ruled, there are many-fold more kingdoms that faired quite disastrously and ultimately fell into a state of ruin.
Similarly, corporations that have succeeded using the system of dictatorial rule are to those that have failed what grains of sand are to a veritable sand dune. There are just so many examples of where corporate dictatorships have spectacularly failed that it's almost laughable to try to use the few survivors as glowing examples of how effective this type of system is. One only has to look at the statistics on the success rate of start-up companies to really drive this point home.
Corporations offer no democratic checks and balances, no means for the rank and file to displace leaders once it is plainly obvious to them that huge blunders and errors in judgement are being perpetrated by these top executives. There are no elected representatives within corporations. Indeed, various layers of management, always appointed from above, are set up not to represent the needs of those managed, but the interests of those managing and - ultimately - the interests of a corporation's top elite. This is precisely not what was deemed desirable in governance of the population at large, so why would we think it desirable in governance of the people that make up a corporation?
In theory, top executives are paid top salaries and are virtually smothered in bonuses and stock options because they possess the keen insticts and insights needed to steer corporations through the minefield of economic uncertainties in the real world. But, if you look at the history, you can clearly see that top executives are paid phenomenal amounts of money more often to make astoundingly bad decisions than good ones. Nowhere else is the principle of leverage so vividly showcased than in the corporate dictatorship. One rather easy-to-make bad judgement by a top executive, once propagated down through the ranks of the corporate pyramid structure, can have a devastating negative impact upon the lives of all those employed by the corporation and - ultimately - even the ecomony in which the corporation operates. Indeed, the prosperity - or lack thereof - of any nation is largely entrusted to select individuals over whom the public have no democratic influence.
You only need to look at the historical reasons why monarchies were displaced in favor of representative governments in order to understand why corporations must ultimately be democratized. The many ultimately become fed up with having their fate so inextricably tied to the good or bad judgements of the few. The many ultimately become dissatisfied with the intolerable extent of their disenfranchisement.