Paul Goble has a good report summarizing an argument from Vadim Dubnov published in Gazeta.ru about Russia's business of politics - how having so many officials with multi-million dollar business interests creates, well, conflicts of interest, to put it lightly.
Any corporation in any country, he says, "objectively will look for chances to take over part of the power of the state, but a normal - that is one not like [Russia's] - corporation long ago rejected romantic ideas of subordinating the [entire] state to itself." Not only is that task not easy, but in the minds of mosst corporate leaders in most countries, it is not worthwhile.
What has happened in Russia is tragic in another sense, Dubnov goes on to say. "A state which has been converted into a corporation does not develop even its own corporative thinking" but rather remains a prisoner of the corporate "style" of its components. As a result, "its motivation has nothing in common with that which [its state] diplomacy should serve."
Moscow's obsession with defending only narrow corporate interests has "become the content of what most consider foreign policy," Dubnov says, and it is now having the effect that the Russian leadership as it goes down this route is "ever more becoming the hostage of its own corporate ambitions" rather than a defender of Russia and the Russians.
But the inverse occurs when a corporation becomes global in the sense it owes no loyalty to any country. Its decisions can be just as detrimental to its "home" country as does the kremlin's corporate think. Example: a major producer does business gloabally, but the "home" government prohibits it from doing business with countries/entities deemed unfriendly to itself. The producer gets around it by having a subsidiary based in another country do deals with the "unfriendly" entity or by 'working' the home country officials. Results, the corp. made money and put its "home" country at risk. Not much difference from what is occurring in Russia, except for the Russians, they're more blatent.