Banks and investment funds control our currency, governments are at best a serious player. many governments are smaller than and often forced to do the bidding of corporations. Companies like wallmart and macdonalds control more what people eat than the us government or those people themselves. If you think companies don't have a lot of power you are deluding get yourselves - the only way to have choice for consumers is when they (through government) control and check the market. If government doesn't monopolies and other anti competitive behaviour nullify any of the free market benefits very quickly.

This used to be true. Nowadays, some corporations have more power than states and have more money in the bank than the whole GDP of multiple countries. Corporations can steal income and can indeed kill people, they are just not powerful enough to do it in the western world yet. Corporations do regulate industrial practices a lot through massive lobbyism, the examples are countless.