Yes it's a cyberpunk trope, but it's also based in history. Wealthy nobles of Rome and Medieval times were landowners and, to put it bluntly, warmongers... using armies to make profit by war. They were nothing if not the corporate warlords of their times, holding shares in agriculture, land ownership and armies. Collecting shares of their workers (commonly referred to as share cropping), much like taxation. If that isn't some form of pseudo governmental function, I'm not sure what is =/