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I'm inclined to agree with you but consider this alternative point of view. The credit system in the country is essentially mandatory and fraud isn't necessary

I'm inclined to agree with you but consider this alternative point of view. The credit system in the country is essentially mandatory and fraud isn't necessary for it to hurt ordinary people. If someone (a poor person!) is denied a job (with which they hoped to remedy their poverty!) based on the ordinary operation of the credit system with correct information in it irrelevant to the position, that's a travesty. Power and who has it can be more subtle than guns. However, I agree that the guns add quite a kick. One step deeper though one might interrogate the extent to which government power is used to support corporations. People get shot and go to jail over such things.

whatshisface 9y ago
The government has a little more than the guns (in the form of the police, the jails), it also has the ability to force resolutions to prisoner's dilemmas and tragedies of the commons that are currently working in our favor. If corporations ever cut out a group of people that should actually be served (for example, denying loans to capable individuals on grounds that have nothing to do with their financial stability), then there is a Schindler's list motivation for corporations to "defect" and include the group. Then, the market dynamics make everyone else a lot worse off unless they also defect. America already has one experience with a mechanism that can coordinate non-equilibrium behaviors among companies that would individually benefit from defecting: racism. Government fiat is another such mechanism, and as far as the similarities go, it could produce something of the same results. (Groups cut out of society with nowhere to turn.)