It's no accident that this topic arises at the same time as a popular newscaster has a book out on the subject. Let there be no doubt: this is an artificially created 'worry' circulated by those with a political agenda.
However evil or powerful "corporations" may be, they are amateurs compared to governments. It wasn't "corporations" that murdered tens of millions of their own population in the last century - it was governments.
Which, of course, reminds us of exactly what was so revolutionary about the American Revolution. It's no accident that the successful rebels deliberately set up a government designed to regulate the government- rather than the traditional role of government limiting their citizens.
That's also where the 'free market' acts to restrain the abuse of power.
Those are the tools to keep "lunatics out of political power." Do they work? Well, look at how far we've come in two centuries - then compare us to even wealthier places that embraced different principles. Notice which way the refugee ships go.
Look at it this way: At the first sign of trouble, there are folks at the local power company perfectly capable of disconnecting your local grid from the national grid. Even under the worst possible case, we're talking about -at most - a few hours before everyone is up and running again .... except for those few places where the actual problem exists.
