George doesn't seem to have a malicious quality about him, nor does Nem, unless you consider Nem's acceptance that he can't realistically do much about two corporations running the global economy to be malicious.
Everyone finds that one major power holding the state of the economy is normal for the same reason many of us in the real world do most of our shopping on Amazon and why we rely on Google more than we should: it's convenient.
I agree, the writing is amazing!