So we function in groups, or at least within an infrastructure provided by groups using the products of groups, but our coordinated behaviors are not instinctual, as those of ants and termites are. We must make decisions, and many of those decisions have to be coordinated with others or we won't survive. Even during interactions within the smallest and least formally organized subsistence or productive groups with members who try to consider everyone's input, there is always someone who says, "O.k., so we've agreed we will...". If the discussion stops, then that person is a leader, whether or not anyone, including the speaker, is aware of it. The reason this inevitably happens is that otherwise the planning would never resolve into action and either the group would fold or the actual decisions would be made behind the scenes by the most forceful personalities without general input.
Even chimps and gorillas have troop leaders, normally males, with veto power in the hands of a few dominant females. Physical battles for the top position are often inconclusive. Then all members have some influence over which self-nominated male ape is permitted to be leader. One way is when the troop literally votes with their feet, following either the established leader or the challenger when it comes time to decide when and where the group should move. So it's very likely that something like this is our innate model. It can be called primitive "self-government" because lots of input and leverage is available to all members, and most would prefer someone else as designated leader to take the final responsibility and the flak. Individuals, both ape and human, vary significantly in the extent of their dominance drive.
Of course humans are capable of more abstract thought. We can decide that the role of leader is genderless and that anyone seen as competent with enough natural dominance can be the symbolic "dominant male". We create multiple leadership positions at different levels with different areas of responsibility. We also can make "rules" and expect members to abide by them until the group decides to accept a change. Rules are what have allowed us to coordinate into much larger groups than would work if we were dependent on face to face, ad hoc decisions by all members. These larger groups both need and are able to support more advanced technology making life more secure and less stressful until we hit its limit.
Our densely populated world has become much more dependent on advanced technology to remain bearable. We are deeply aware that our many people can't be sustained in small agri-groups or hunter-gatherer units. If we attempted to revert, we'd get mass starvation--thus our reluctance to rock the boat of the corporate model. But as we stay organized in our larger groupings, it becomes harder and harder to maintain "self-government" (meaningful leverage and input by all).
There has always been a shadow "gov't" in the U.S., ruling large numbers of citizens without allowing them input, hogging resources, creating a downward pressure on the share of wealth available to the overwhelming majority, and wantonly polluting, while claiming to be the only type of institution entitled to use society's resources to be productive: the anti-democratic, large, for-profit corporation. The harm they do is not unfortunate collateral damage, but the result of the warped template on which they are based. Corporate charters demand that the company's resources be the resonsibility of a tiny management only, no matter how many others participate in the company and how many are affected by its actions. These charters also insist its resources be used for the sole purpose of making money or increased value for investors. Corporate responsibility is an oxymoron because prioritizing any other goal over enriching the bottomline would be an illegal act jeopardizing the positions of its management. Their charitable activities have to be strictly public relations and not serious money.
In the largest corporations, the heirarchical structure and worship of power for its own sake allow the ascent into management of only the most dominance-driven and ruthless people, those who actually thrive on giving far-reaching orders which take nothing, absolutely nothing, but their corporation's accumulation of wealth, and thus power, into consideration. There is no equivalent to the clique of females in our original, small bands of relatives, demanding that the rulers be caring as well as strong. Very little either internally in the company or outside in society restrains the tyranny of their power, their exploitation of the resources of the larger society, or the mini empires they build, as long as the bottomline increases. Unions sometimes blunt the worst abuses of their workforces, but the corporate structure bars any meaningful sharing of power. The only checks have come from our representative gov't during the brief periods when strong "reform" (anti-corruption) movements held sway and a fair number in Congress took their representative duties seriously.
If the entire "99%" rose up today, demanded the end of gov't, and succeeded in completely obliterating the existing gov't, even before they had finished the job, the largest, now global corporations would have created a completely tyrannical replacement structure for imposing their will on the people and the planet. If we scurried off and attempted to "live outside the system" in small groups based on subsistence agriculture, as peasants do, the corporate powers would treat us as they have peasants the world over, and steal or destroy our resources (water, land, energy production, local markets) leaving us the choice of either starving and watching our families starve, or of committing suicide as so many in India have under the relentless oppression.
Anarchism is not an option given the realities of power. The 99% have no choice but to band together in something as large as the U.S. government in self-defense. For it to be reliably the agent of the people, it must contain powerful safeguards it now lacks such as public financing of elections, severe restrictions on monopolies and cartels in the for-profit sphere, and much more. Struggling for something important is also a stronger motivator than a call to simply act as a brake. When we rise up, we must be willing to make the changes that put the government back in the hands of the people, rather than indulge our anger in meaningless destruction. As Yogi Berra famously said, "If you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else".
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