The baffling conceit here is that people in government are angels and people in business are evil. They’re still people, with all the same motivations.
No it isn't. It's the more prosaic observation that governments are more accountable by procedural mechanisms than privately owned firms. How well those mechanisms work is subject to wide variance; nobody believes that North Korea actually operates in a democratic fashion,. but there are many countries that self-evidently do. The concept of a constitutional republic (as opposed to all of its real world implementations) is one of maximizing the citizenry's ability to participate in the decisions that affect them.
Most corporations not only function but are structured as autocracies, in which junior employees have no rights over their conditions of employment other than departure.
Most corporations not only function but are structured as autocracies, in which junior employees have no rights over their conditions of employment other than departure.