It doesn't matter how many companies and businesses there are. They all have more in common with each other than they do with their employees or their customers.

You have no concept of class, that is, a set of individuals (or even of collectives) that have shared interests. True, companies may compete with one another, but they quickly cooperate when faced with a common threat (like a union, or a foreign competitor, or a troublesome regulatory agency). Medieval nobles were always fighting each other, but they moved together when faced with a common problem, like a peasant's revolt, or a cheeky monarch (remember King John and Magna Carta?).

Even when there is no active, organized collusion, the system is always stacked against the little guy. It may be just as hard for an employee to get a new job, or find a new provider for a vital service, as it was for a serf to find a new baron to work for. It's not as bad now as it was during the laissez-faire Gilded Age, but its getting worse every day. We're heading back to late 19th century economic conditions, and some of us aren't exactly looking forward to them.

You always rely on the market to deny the asymmetry betweeen worker and employer, or buyer and seller, but the market only works imperfectly, This is especially the case in times like ours, when the barons (or the businessmen) join forces and use their economic resources to manipulate economic or social conditions--and political activity-- for the benefit of their class. In other words, they are GAMING THE FREE MARKET, to use Robert's exquisitely useful phrase.

This is a major source of tension in all capitalist democracies, and this tension isn't necessarily a bad thing, provided the equilibrium doesn't swing too far one way or the other.

Needless to say, this disequilibrium is usually at its worst during Republican administrations. The Conservative constituency, and those poor deluded fools who fancy they are a part of it, feel they are entitled to special privileges. After all, they are the producers, the makers, the nice folks with a work ethic. The 47% are just a bunch of low-life dead beats who want money for nothing and chicks for free. Those of us who just work here, and haven't fooled ourselves into thinking we are ideologically or genetically entitled to be managers and entrepreneurs, may have different ideas.

As for occasional persuasion being better than coercion, well, phrased that way, who could disagree? But continuous and systematic repetition is barely distinguishable from indoctrination. The marks have all been brought up in a media-savvy society. They aren't all buying it anymore. We recognize a marketing campaign when we see one.