> How, then, can an intelligent person trust a government? Because that's just the better option. Somebody is always going to gather a lot of power with a big

> How, then, can an intelligent person trust a government? Because that's just the better option. Somebody is always going to gather a lot of power with a big organization. The choice you get is between an organization whose purpose is to serve the masses (democratic goverment) and organizations whose purpose is to serve very elites (corporations, organized crime). Regarding your specific point regarding killing people: I think you are oversimplifying here. With the opium wars and the subsequent flooding of china with opium, British trading companies probably already firmly hold the record for killing people on a large scale. For more recent examples, I would point towards the commercial part of the US Industrial-Military complex. But yes, the government is then frequently instrumentalized to do the actual killing. I would assume this to become harder the stronger and more democratic a government is.