First of all there is no need to try again. I was asked to show one, I showed Google and you agreed!

Well no, you were asked:

“Show me a historical corporation that got powerful and needed a government to bring it down that wasn’t given that power by the government to begin with.”

Google wasn’t granted any significant power by the government, nor does it show any real need to be “brought down” (FDA’s threatened anti-trust investigation non-withstanding). Incorporated in 1998, it arguably isn’t even an “historical corporation” 😉

Second, the statement seemed to indicate that the Government ‘helped’ specific companies by creating incentives for a specific company or industry, at least that is how I read it. In many cases this is true. The government, for example, helped the railroad, phone companies, etc by creating conditions that made it favorable for the company to do something it otherwise would not. In fact the government required it.

Yes, it granted them significant property rights over the land and a monopoly over the resulting infrastructure. If you’re going to do that then you need to properly regulate the companies to ensure they don’t abuse the privileged position they’ve been granted. Unfortunately the government has largely failed to do this and I’m not altogether convinced it is even possible to make this work.

The Government did not aim to create a software company (Microsoft) or a smartphone / tablet maker (Apple). Microsoft and Apple did what all companies, and in fact nearly all people do, they exploit an existing situation to their advantage. That is pretty much nature, you find it in plants, animals, and people.

No argument there – offer someone power and they will take it. It’s also clear that they will often abuse it if they can get away with it, particularly in the case of corporations whose only motive is profit. I don’t have any magic solutions to this problem, but identifying it as a problem has to be the first step.

Government attempts, often wrong headed to be sure, to level the playing field. The problem, especially today, is that the game is changing nearly daily and the laws don’t. Any person or company can, and will use that to their advantage.

The problem is, nearly every example that appears on this site is an example of the government tipping the playing field in favour of someone, or failing to level the playing field when it is clear that they need to do so. Some of it is down to glacial reaction speeds, sure, but often it is down to people or corporations with government granted power and influence using said power to their unfair advantage.

You sound like Obama “If you have a business, you didn’t build that”. That is patently absurd. People (and corporation are made up of *gasp* people, and will exploit their environment, to their advantage, to reach their goal. This will happen, with or without government intervention.

I’m not one of those people who think corporations and/or capitalism are inherently evil. A free market is supposed to be largely self-regulating, at least in theory. However it’s difficult to tell as I’m not sure we have ever had a true free market economy to observe!

You could kill copyright today and in a short period of time those affected would come up with other ways to make money

Good! I don’t want companies to stop making money – I just want them to stop gaming the system while they are doing it. Getting rid of copyright and patents would be an excellent first step!