Citizen votes are non-binding. Politicians can do whatever they want once elected.
The vast majority of people don't even pay attention to what they do once in office, unless it's particularly bad.
Then once in office they don't have to face the consequences of reelection for 4-6 years.
Government transparency is getting better thanks to technology. But at the same time there are more and more 500-page bills that even the politicians don't read. And more agencies with ever growing power who operate in secrecy.
Transparency exists in corporations because they must operate in a market of both investors and customers. Both of those require visible results. In both the short and long term.
Governments are not result-driven. The negative effects of most policies often take effect long after the politican is gone.
In addition, the opportunity cost of Government backed economic and social policies are notoriously difficult to track. But arguably even if they were, based on recent political debates where things like the Fiscal cliff were not even mentioned, I doubt it would matter.
Says who? Or, more to the point, whose army? When the corporations that hold your email and bank statements refuse to be dumped, you'll need someone to break into their server rooms, wipe their hard drives, and arrest or shoot anyone who resists. I want those people to obey the law, and be under democratic control.
If I opted into using their service and agreed to their TOS that included them keeping my data. Then thats my fault.
But if they act maliciously, them having my data is hardly going to keep me from continuing to use their service.
You forget that all service providers have these TOS. You don't have a choice.
> Them having my data is hardly going to keep me from continuing to use their service.
If you've been using a Gmail account for several years, good luck closing it if you don't want to lose future emails sent to that address.
I'd much rather take my chances with democracy.
I suspect that much of the agency we feel in our dealings with both of these groups is illusory, perhaps inspired by a conditioning to approve of the broad basket of behaviors they were going to exhibit anyway. Even more imaginary, however, may be the thought that a strong embedding in a peer-regulating group will give us more agency. Humans had that arrangement for thousands of years, but most recent (last few centuries anyway) changes in society have undermined it. Society is the sum of choices we all make, and we don't seem to be returning to the village green.
With the corporation, I only have illusion of control, zero transparency, and often contractual binding to an entity that only has incentive to take advantage of me.
Now, as far as government working properly: surely, it often doesn't work well. For one, governments are often too large (in citizen count) for individuals to participate effectively. This often leads to powerful interests taking over. But, perhaps this is because our governmental structures were invented way too long ago to be current.
The 'private citizen' part is interesting. I would prefer to have peer-to-peer relationships that are effective and strong enough. But, that's a ways off, isn't it?