# Who do the "Skull and Bones" really want to be elected president?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-the-skull-and-bones-really-want-to-be-elected-president/254436>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [July 10, 2004, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-the-skull-and-bones-really-want-to-be-elected-president/254436 "2004-07-10T14:58:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-the-skull-and-bones-really-want-to-be-elected-president/254436/21 "2004-07-14T01:12:26Z")

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> [@FriarTed](#):
>
> Yeah, a system in which big corporations & big government work together in promoting monopoly capitalism & imposing regulations which keep smaller competitors from becoming a threat to the big corps…

I think you are using a needlessly cryptic term for “business as usual.”

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**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-the-skull-and-bones-really-want-to-be-elected-president/254436/22 "2004-07-14T03:02:09Z")

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Kind of.

> [@](#):
>
> Historically, corporatism or corporativism (Italian corporativismo) is a political system in which legislative representation is given to industries or professional and economic groups. Ostensibly, the entire society is to be run by decisions collectively made by these groups. It is a form of class collaboration put forward as an alternative to class conflict and was first proposed in Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum which influenced Catholic trade unions which were organised in the early twentieth century to counter the influence of trade unions founded on a socialist ideology. The Vatican’s ideas were also influential in the development of fascist economic theory.  
> Corporatism is also used in reference to tendencies in politics for legislators and administrations to be influenced or dominated by the interests of corporations rather than citizens. In this view, government decisions are seen as being influenced strongly by which sorts of policies will lead to greater profits for favored companies. In this sense of the word, corporatism is also termed corporatocracy. If there is substantial military-corporate collaboration it is often called militarism or the military-industrial complex.

from [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism). Joh Ralston Saul goes on (and on, and on, and on) about it in his Voltaire’s Bastards.

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