Corporations are creatures of the government; they can't be any more of a pure tyranny (or authoritarian regime -- tyranny really ought to be reserved for rule by military force, which while certainly common in top-down authoritarianism, is decidedly less common in corporations) than the government sponsoring them (they can be more of a current tyranny/authoritarianism than the government as a whole, but they can't be "pure" tyranny unless the government is, since any democratic capacity in the government can be applied to its control of the corporations it charters.)
If I have a dog and treat it as property (instead of a friend maybe), that relationship is certainly tyranny -- one gets to command, the other gets to listen or else. That I might sometimes pretend to be nice to it when others are paying attention, or when I'm afraid the dog might run away to someone else, is kinda offset by the fact that I am actively trying to make both of that impossible.
Sure, it is currently impeded by factors of the world it's embedded in, but in spirit it's still tyranny. Just recall how capitalism started out, and how much struggle it took to inject even the most rudimentary sanity and dignity into it. People got killed over that stuff. Now we have the constant backlash, always smiling with eyes that don't partake; just like some people want to see women back in the kitchen, others would love to have free reign back over the people who work for them. And goddamnit, if that isn't gobbled right up by some.
You can bicker about the words "pure" and/or "tyranny" all you want, but the point would be the same if he had said "have a strict top-down flow of authority", and then what? Same point, "requiring" a whole new set of responses.
> You can bicker about the words "pure" and/or "tyranny" all you want
The distinction between "pure" tyranny of corporations and the less-pure tyranny (because it was tempered by potential democracy) in government was the whole of the Chomsky quote, so its not "bickering" to point out that the tyranny of corporations cannot be any more "pure" than that of the sponsoring government.
> but the point would be the same if he had said "have a strict top-down flow of authority"
Corporations do not inherently have a strict top-down flow of authority. Labor cooperatives are still (generally)corporations. Governments control the structures that are possible for corporations, which can neither be formed nor continue to exist but through acts of government; if, in any particular system, strict top-down flow of authority is essential in a corporation it is because a government has chosen to make it so. Corporations have no less "potential" for democracy than governments do.
Until the corporate influence over federal politics makes them the master of their creators. In effect, they are the government, shaping law and jurisprudence to their necessity.
