Editing Corporatocracy (section)

===Corporate influence on legislation===
{{main|Regulatory capture}}
Corporations have a significant influence on the regulations and regulators that monitor them. For example, Senator [[Elizabeth Warren]] stated in December 2014 that an omnibus spending bill required to fund the government was modified late in the process to weaken banking regulations. The modification made it easier to allow taxpayer-funded bailouts of banking "swaps entities", which the [[Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act|Dodd-Frank]] banking regulations prohibited. She singled out [[Citigroup]], one of the largest banks, which had a role in modifying the legislation. She also stated that both Wall Street bankers and members of the government that formerly had worked on Wall Street stopped bi-partisan legislation that would have broken up the largest banks. She repeated President Theodore Roosevelt's warnings regarding powerful corporate entities that threatened the "very foundations of Democracy".<ref>{{cite AV media|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJpTxONxvoo| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211124/DJpTxONxvoo| archive-date=2021-11-24 | url-status=live|title=Remarks by Senator Warren on Citigroup and its bailout provision|date=12 December 2014|work=YouTube|access-date=21 September 2015}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

In a 2015 interview, former President [[Jimmy Carter]] stated that the United States is now "an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery" due to the ''[[Citizens United v. FEC]]'' ruling, which effectively removed limits on donations to political candidates.<ref>{{cite magazine|url= https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jimmy-carter-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-with-unlimited-political-bribery-63262/amp/|title=Jimmy Carter: U.S. Is an 'Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery'|last=Kreps|first=Daniel|magazine=Rolling Stone|date=31 July 2015}}</ref> [[Wall Street]] spent a record $2 billion trying to influence the [[2016 United States elections]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Wall Street spends record $2bn on US election lobbying |url=https://www.ft.com/content/5060844a-0420-11e7-ace0-1ce02ef0def9 |work=Financial Times |date=March 8, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Wall Street Spent $2 Billion Trying to Influence the 2016 Election |url=https://fortune.com/2017/03/08/wall-street-2016-election-spending/ |work=Fortune |date=March 8, 2017}}</ref>

[[Joel Bakan]], a [[University of British Columbia]] law professor and the author of the award-winning book ''The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power'', writes:
 
{{Blockquote|The Law forbids any motivation for their actions, whether to assist workers, improve the environment, or help consumers save money. They can do these things with their own money, as private citizens. As corporate officials, however, stewards of other people’s money, they have no legal authority to pursue such goals as ends in themselves – only as means to serve the corporation's own interests, which generally means to maximise the wealth of its shareholders. Corporate social responsibility is thus illegal – at least when it is genuine.|Joel Bakan, ''The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power'' <ref>Bakan, ''The Corporation'', Constable, 2004, p.37</ref>}}