If leftism were to ascend in the world, some would probably take that as a sign that goodness and righteousness had won out. Of course, anything that ascends attracks the nefarious and this would probably be no exception. An attempt by an international entity to take over global corporations might actually just be looting expedition in the name of socialism. Who would win that war?

Define " power". In the the sense that money is power, then some corporations have more power than some nations. However, nations can arbitrarily confiscate property, thus seizing power - consider Venezuela.

What would be involved in confiscating the property of Alibaba.com ? Or would it just be about taking the property of the owners of it?

High taxes.

But nations will compete to give Alibaba a taxless home. They want the jobs.

Doesn't Alibaba just act as a broker for selling goods produced by cheap Chinese labor? That labor can't be exported.

Alibaba doesn't own any of that labor. It's e-commerce, right? Does it have to be in a particular place?

No corporation currently has 'sovereign' status, as far as I know; so in one sense, any sovereign state is more powerful than any corporation. Sovereign status without material resources to enforce their sovereignty make for supine states that serves as the handmaidens of corporations. The classic example of this was "the banana republics" of Central America (O Henry coined the term) United Fruit Company and other large food corporations dominated the several republic to an extreme degree.

On the other hand, corporations are far more mobile than states. A corporation or wealthy person can move their resources out of the US, for instance, and put them in tax havens like Panama or Bermuda (or Switzerland, the UK, Netherlands, Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc). UK isn't a banana republic, exactly, but it makes a lot of money handling the funds of entities that are fleeing legitimate taxation. (People flee the UK to shelter funds from the Crown (QE2).

So... some corporations are more powerful than some nations.

Uncle Karl says "The state is a committee to organize the affairs of the bourgeoisie." In modern parlance, we'd say the state is the servant of the corporpation and of very wealthy interests. So, despite having a nuclear arsenal, the US Government has permanently spread its legs for the convenience of corporate interests, like oil, coal, banking, pharmaceuticals, lumber, real estate, railroads, steel, ocean shipping, and so on.

If corporations own the US military, then corporations are stronger than any nation, right?

What the US could do is default on its loan and bring down the global economy.

careful what you wish for.

True.

It truly depends on the nation in question. Many states in the first world with a fundamentally free market economy would be more liable to corporate influence, where the legislative would be more keen to draft statutes which protect corporate interests or impose less regulations, and in some nations the laws behind lobbying to protect these interests are less strict. In this context, it could be argued in an abstract sense that corporations have an undue influence on the sovereign, but naturally the term power carries different connotations to it - while they may have the resources and the favour of the government generally, the power to legislate is still in the hands of the sovereign alone despite this influence. It is also worth mentioning that first world countries typically have a system of democracy in which, if corporate influence on the legislative powers becomes too problematic, the party under corporate influence can be voted out of government.

On the flip side, corporate power is far less pronounced in left-leaning countries. Social democracies tend to impose tighter regulations on corporations, and in far-left administrations (especially communist regimes the power of the state is almost absolute.

Especially communist regimes the power of the state is almost absolute. — cynicaladvocate

Are there still communist regimes?

There are only a few states left with a communist governing party as the sole sovereign power - I believe they are China, North Korea, The Republic of Cuba, Laos and Vietnam. Some of these countries are one-party states and have varying degrees of authoritarianism in their governments. Also, some of these states such as China have adopted some changes to their policy and have relaxed some of their communist principles, for instance, some of these countries have recognised private property. Nevertheless, in all of these nations it can be said that the state do have a large degree of control and power.

It is also noteworthy that there are a lot of democracies with communist parties that have a significant degree in legislative power, though these are not considered communist states because other parties also hold (typically more) voting power.

An economy with privately held companies just doesn't seem very communist to me. :)

I do agree that in some respects these countires can be said to be "communist by-name only", however it is important to understand that regardless of that the ruling parties do still have very far-left economic policies. Furthermore, I interpret pure communism as an idealistic end-goal rather than a legitimate economic system - ever since the emergence of communism in the geopolitical landscape, states such as the USSR had more of a socialist economy with an emphasis on state ownership and power. No country has managed to reach the end-state of communism as Marx had envisaged, and really created their own interpretation of Marxism to suit their own bureaucratic needs.

I understand. My hypothesis right now is that dominance of the state over industry and banking requires tyranny of a monarchical or Czarist sort (basically what the USSR had). Do you agree?

corporations because they can buy anything they want and it is done by having all the
resources they have In the world of material corporations win because nation is just
a sense of pride that is immaterial and can fade at any moment when one doesnt have
possessions of the world resources

Nation states just have given so much power to corporations that they seem to be powerful. They are not.

Corporations are inherently weak structures, they are just a complex contract, a piece of paper. If a corporation goes bankrupt, is dissolved or is sold, the people in that corporation just go work somewhere else and don't look back. The corporation just vanishes from reality to be a sidenote in economic history. People have actually no bonds to a corporation other than a contract to work there or a contract that they own a part of that company. These are extremely loose bonds. No person will die to defend a corporation. With sovereign nation states it's different. If a judge in Texas deems the country of Iran illegal and gives an order to dissolve it, the Iranians won't simply dissolve their state. And if the US military then goes into Iran to dissolve it, they likely are met with fierce opposition.

Besides, why would nation states care so much about corporations? Usually corporations don't work against the nation state itself, hence they aren't a threat to nation states. By bringing employment and tax revenue to the country the state usually has few quarrels with corporations. States are just very lax with corporations and understand that the make corporations part of the government usually doesn't work so well.

And anyway, if a nation state gives up political power to corporations and the lobbyists they employ, it's only the fault of the people of that country. In the end, the people make the state.