That's a pretty unsubstantiated claim, considering the tens of millions of people murdered by governments in the 20th century.

It is actually into the hundreds of millions, and that is just governments killing their own people, not inter-state wars. Rummel puts this number at 262M.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide

That's probably because governments enforced a monopoly on weapons. Do you think the world would be better if we allowed companies to raise private armies of mercenaries?

We don't now? There's more private gun-toting personnel in the Middle East now than you could easily count.

And that place is in great shape :)

With extractive governments like Assad's, you could hardly expect something different.

I think it depends on if you're talking about expected case or worst case.

In the U.S., companies will act out of their own selfish interests, but in theory the government can address the concerns of the citizens in areas the citizens don't have sufficient power themselves ("by the people, for the people", etc). If the government is focused on regulating the industry, the "serf" ownership model won't be transitive from the companies to the government. Hopefully the companies would act as a barrier and the government would never get them as direct minions.

But obviously the government could abuse this position. Then it's a question of which one would be the purest evil given the chance.