Yes you are correct in your interpretation. Here's my further opinion:

Those with power and money fund things. Anything else just a name-- "aristocracy", "government/democracy", "private companies".

The reality is, we are all fighting one way or another for the attention and benevolence of those more powerful and wealthy than us, and boy are they fickle. So, you might as well hope for a federation of hundreds of entities, rather than the world we currently have, which is realistically in the dozens at most.