“You can’t fight city hall.” The reason is as irritating as it is surprising.

Neither “Governments” nor “Corporations” exist anywhere but in the imagination.  Governments and Corporations are artificial entities that exist merely because we believe in them. They are not like people,  who exist on their own in spite of what anyone else believes about them.

It is our belief in them that grants power and authority to these imaginary entities – power and authority they cannot possess any other way. We give them homage and deference as if they were people. But they are not. If we ceased to believe in them, they would cease to exist. They are not people; they are constructs of the imagination.

These imaginary constructs have no power and no authority on their own because they do not exist on their own.

When the government says, “Pay your taxes!”, it is not really “The Government” speaking; it is a merely a person – a person cloaked in a long, black robe or sporting a shiny badge on his chest or wearing a special hat.  Neither the robe, nor the hat, nor the badge give that person any particular power or authority; it is our collective belief in some sort of unseen, almost supernatural entity called “The Government” that gives that person in the silly outfit any power at all.

(Or more accurately, the combined power of a whole bunch of people.) When a corporation says, “We cannot refund your money”, it is actually a person saying that.

The reason “You can’t fight City Hall” is because City Hall does not actually exist. But you can fight people.