Break With Oligarchy

The United States break with the British Empire might be the only time a group of European people successfully broke away from inbred aristocrats and greasy oligarchs, and even that break was a short lived and mixed experiment. The free US existed about 100 years until it was pulled back into the Empire game (around 1900).

The people of the 19th century US were conscious of their special status. In William Atherton's memoir he contrasts the haughty hard hearted British Officers with the enlisted men, for example. He was quite conscious that Empire Britain was the enemy not only of himself but of everyone who wished to be free.

By the entry of the United States into WWI, the institutions of the country had been compromised, and by 1947 and the creation of the CIA, the United States had been totally swamped by oligarchs.

Modern corporate nations are by their very nature easy to corrupt and control via the mechanisms that were meant to keep them to task and limit their authority. It's easy to corrupt and blackmail the officials that are supposed to represent the interests of the people and for the public resources to be put in service of private gain.

The main problem seems to be that the common people easily forget their own interests, and get lazy about guarding their liberty. Their liberty really isn't that dear to them in all its constituent parts. Consider the TSA as an example of how this works. A couple swindlers stood to make millions or billions of shekels on the creation of that agency, while it only costs the average person a few hours of standing in line over their lifetime.