I asked for corporations that have armed secret services that aren't accountable, while comparing a corporation VS a state. These corporations don't have anything like I asked for, or I am massively overlooking something - please send a direct link to an example of a documented kill or something else comparable to what CIA or FBI does.
Also: does it have to be "armed secret services"? What about other ways of killing people? I vaguely remember some corporations being involved in funding militias to secure mining sites of tantalum[0]. But to use a more recent and easier-sourced example: how about driving people to suicide? There was quite a big fuss recently over France Télécom/Orange doing that in the process of privatizing public telecoms and turning lives of undesirable but unfireable employees into hell, which ended in multiple suicides[1].
Military contractors don't fight for themselves, they are contracted by a government, don't they? If you think they do, I am very interested in an example (I don't know that sector).
Funding a militia is a good one, that's some government-style play.
I think the Telecom and Orange one is more of some people within the corporations hand in hand with some people within the government.
> Military contractors don't fight for themselves, they are contracted by a government, don't they?
They are - depending on how you look at it, you can consider them an extension of governments, or as private companies that figured out a way to partake in the "monopoly on violence" and thus get to make money by killing people. Governments have limited ability to micromanage their contractors - in fact, a reason to hire a PMC is to outsource micromanagement. You tell them where to be and what to do, and they manage themselves.
Now if you give a company permission to use violence and legal cover, the obvious thing happens - the companies start to do their own things on the side. Documented cases include murder, smuggling of alcohol and weapons, sex trafficking and host of other evil acts[0].
> I think the Telecom and Orange one is more of some people within the corporations hand in hand with some people within the government.
That's true, but this is always the case with large corporations. Private markets and governance aren't independent - they're very much intertwined. Power begets money begets power. Trying to talk about government vs. private interests, we have to remember that the boundary between them is very fuzzy - the separation makes sense when economists talk about bakeries and barbers and mom&pop stores. It breaks down as you approach bigger and more wealthy companies[1].
[1] - Hell, you could say it breaks down as soon as company's wealth or influence approaches the wealth or influence of the political unit in which it's embedded. It'll take a megacorp to seriously play on the national politics stage, but even a humble factory can have huge impact on county politics if it employs a significant chunk of said county's population.
