At the end of the day though, even private individuals are beholden to the people in the nation. It's a social contract, so people may no longer agree to allow those private individuals to be wealthy and run the banks.

That said, if you're holding the wealth, it's not too hard to keep the shop running (people happy) so long as you don't get bored, reckless and feckless.

Luckily, they also control the government and military.

The citizens elect the government, so I have to take issue with this point. Wealthy people do have quite a bit of influence though.

Basically what I'm saying is, we can elect a government that serves our own interest if we cared to.

If it does get ugly, and the government/military turns on its citizens then the US as we know it will be dead or on life support. Probably, in such a scenario, people won't go quietly into that night.

> we can elect a government that serves our own interest if we cared to.

In theory, I'm still waiting to see it in practice. The Bernie Sanders situation from last election was a decent illustration of how legitimate the election process is, and they took care of him before the gloves even came off. (Trump was far trickier but as it turns out he's more of the same, if not worse.)

>If it does get ugly, and the government/military turns on its citizens then the US as we know it will be dead or on life support. Probably, in such a scenario, people won't go quietly into that night.

Not to also mention that government's and militaries need people to supply it, and if their suppliers are now on the list of enemy combatants then such governments and militaries won't have the same leverage/power as those that are not combating it suppliers.

> The central banks, obviously. Many of them not being beholden to a nation but to private individuals.

Example? The largest countries' central banks are accountable to their governments.

They are not. They are legally independent in many countries incl. the US, Japan, India (de facto), S. Korea, and Thailand.

> They are legally independent in many countries

We're saying the same thing. Most central banks, e.g. the Federal Reserve, were created by law. The Congress giveth and the Congress taketh away. In any case, the comment I was replying to seemed to imply central banks are privately owned. That's what I was refuting.

Fair enough.

I think the comment was implying that their policies, not being entirely democratically accountable - the effectiveness of these instruments themselves being arguable - are very likely going to be swayed by private interests.

I know there exists a revolving door b/w FDR and major Wall Street banks, but I'm not sure about other countries. I'd not be surprised if this were the case everywhere.

Edit:

'Princes of Yen' is a documentary that I found did a good job of illustrating the dangers of having such high powered unaccountable cabals (without all the BS that is typical in this genre).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY

Congress could technically issue a new law, but otherwise the president can't interfere beyond his ability to nominate replacements. What china really lacks is this separation of power, which is seen as a western imperialistic concept unsuited to china like rule of law via an independent judiciary.