People are being harmed today, not just hypothetical people born 100 years later.

Of course that is wrong and it is not immoral; but, if you want to do it in the moral way, you have to consider the lives of any living things (plants and animals), including but not limited to humans. Furthermore, there is the consideration of what exactly has to be sacrificed and what kind of coercion is being used (which might be immoral for a different reason); morals is not as simple like they would say.

But, yes people do find all sorts of justifications, whether or not they are any good (although sometimes it is not immediately clear if it is any good, unfortunately).

It is the inevitable outcome of materialism, hedonism, & short-term thinking. I think it's going to get worse before it gets any better.

It's a fair rejoinder, except I think it mixes idealism about government for realism. In reality, the government becomes an entity unto itself. This is a universal problem of government. Democratic institutions are themselves supposed to be a check on this impulse. However, as you are aware these are not absolute. A check that foresees a need to restrain government also sees a need to empower the government to restrain people.

I think however when we acknowledge that men are not angels, and that therefore government itself is dangerous merely as a centralization of power, then no, you cannot simply say well government is supposed to be of a different type of power than corporations. Because again, in reality this is often not the case. This is why several of the American founders and many of those who fought in that revolution also became anti federalists or argued against constitutional ratification.

I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think there has ever been a situation where it is accurate to say the population as a whole controls the government. In practice it doesn't work that way, and is about as useful as saying well the market controls corporations. I think something more like anti federalism could use a renaissance... the government should be weak in more cases. Individuals should be empowered. A government power to hold a corporation accountable could then rest on simply its strict duty to enforce a civil remedy. That is of a different nature than the government deciding on its own who (and more importantly - who not) to prosecute.

But I appreciate your push back, there are indeed no easy answers.

Bullshit. I have no control whatsoever over the government. It is completely separate from me. I have 1000x more power over Amazon by my ability to choose to not buy from them than my vote gives me over government bureaucracy. That's why whenever I have a problem with an Amazon order it is resolved in minutes when I contact support. Good luck if you have a problem with the government.

We are in this situation because we elect people who do not hold the capital class accountable. Look at the people we elect. How would them running companies be any better?

Why not make the civil case path easier then? The extreme nature of your remedy is the idea of a government taking over and owning a corporation. That creates bad incentives. I think if individuals could reasonably expect to be able to knock people like Mark Zuckerberg out of the billionaire class in a civil suit, then yes, he and the types of people he represents would behave better. Having the government run Facebook or Enron or Google or whatever both sounds less desirable than empowering individuals and weakening corporate protections in civil cases, and frankly; worse than the prevailing situation re the "capital class". If you think the current political situation is bad the last thing you should want is more government power.