Government in the year 2034

Hello again from the future. I decided that since last time I talked about something important, namely medical advances, that this time I would talk about something truly unimportant, government.

I know that may seem odd since in your time government still controlled quite a lot, but the truth is that much more of that was an illusion even then than it may seem. This isn't a conspiracy theory, that never was how governments failed. Instead it was simple incompetence and that you can easily see.

There were numerous problems but in the end they almost all came down to a single issue. No one was ever willing to make a decision that might hurt them politically. Because of this they continually became less important in the process. If all a representative is going to do is parrot back what people want to hear we don't need them.

Then of course there was the celebrity culture that became more and more a part of politics especially as people began to recognise that no one who was running anything mattered anyway.

This led to more incompetence and that allowed corporations to gain more power. No one has put an exact day on it but at some point the balance of power simply switched. Government was no longer in charge the businesses were.

Government still exists of course but its form is far different. Instead of taking control of things it simply does the things that none of the businesses can see any profit in, which is remarkably little.They still run the libraries, DMV's in most states and work as an independent party to make decisions between companies on things like water rights and land usage.

On a more specific note President Spears is doing far better than i expected, but then I live on my own private island so I can avoid some of the problems.

All of this may sound like a radical change but the truth of the matter is that corporations have every incentive to keep things running smoothly. Bad economies hurt them more than it ever hurt the government and so as governors they aren't bad.  It's not exactly democracy as you remember it but it's not as bad as you might expect either.