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The 147 Corporations Controlling Most of the Global Economy
rubycodez writes "Researchers at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute in Zurich have identified a 'Capitalist Network' [PDF] of well-connected companies that control most of the global economy. They further identified the 147 'super-connected' companies that control forty percent or more of the global financial network. If one believes the mega-corporations have most governments of the west in their pockets, does this mean we have a global oligarchy?"
I bet you could easily whittle that down to less than 50 who effectively control just about everything in the first-world--when you factor in subsidiaries, companies they invest in or who invest in or depend on them, companies they partner with extensively, etc. Just look at the web of control that the major banking companies alone exert. When a handful of companies in a single industry are so powerful that if they fail, your ENTIRE ECONOMY (and that of many other countries) collapses, I would say they effectively own you. That's way more powerful than any mere group of individual citizens could ever hope to be.
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We have a global plutocracy, which the government of the richest, for the richest and by the richest.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
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Does this mean we have a global oligarchy
I know it was meant to be rhetorical, but "YES." These statistics merely reinforce the intuition that we have all had for decades. In the modern day, oligarchy == democracy. Companies that are "too big to fail." This is why there are people flooding the streets with with signs saying "We are the 99%." Because it isn't the 99% that count.
Facts are beautiful aren't that? Distortable into implying anything you want.
There will always be a 'The XXX corporations controlling most of the global economy', just like there will always be 'kills the most people in this group'.
And for reference, 'most' to me, is more than half.
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Yes.
Next Question: How do we topple it?
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"It seems as soon as someone gets elected to Congress, they are immediately bought by the wealthy elite to represent their interests."
They can't get that far without being bought and paid for in the first place.
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...does this mean we have a global oligarchy?
Of course it does! That's why the middle class is shrinking over most of the globe - those who have power and money are doing their damnedest to concentrate both in their own hands, and the most efficient way to do that is to co-operate among themselves and work together to achieve world domination. And the fastest route to domination is via absolute economic control.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Give it time. As an above poster mentioned, it's quite surprising that there's such a high number. It's very likely that the power is really consolidated into a fractional few, especially with all the collusion going on.
A corporation alone cannot harm or control you. It can only do that with the help of government.
But most of those companies have thousands of owners, not just one. They're probably in your 401(k) or pension plan.
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With 14,700 corporations you'd have no chance.
A remarkably dumb thing to say. Concentration of wealth and power is far more of a problem than the modest complexity of having more businesses to regulate.
But most of those companies have thousands of owners, not just one.
Someone who owns 0.000000000000000001% of a company because he has 100 shares is not an "owner", but an investor. The owners are the banks and the founders, that hold real percentages of the corporation. The little guys just exist as a convenient way to raise capital, and they are the first to take the fall, getting wiped out first if the company goes south. Once in a while the company will throw them a bone in the form of dividends. And once in a while, depending on the company and the share type, these "owners" will be given the illusion of a vote. In the most free case they can choose between pre-determined agenda #1 or pre-determined agenda #2. When they get too annoying their ownership share simply gets diluted. However they certainly do not get to choose what the CEO has for dinner tonight on the company credit card, or what luxury hotel suite he stays in.
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For one thing, many of these are publicly traded companies.
More importantly, what can corporations really control?
Could Microsoft "control" you into buying Zune?
Was it Apple's "control" of the global capitalist infrastructure that made the iPhone popular, or did they just meet the needs of their customers?
At the end of the day, customers control these companies more than anything else.
Certainly organized special interest groups of all kinds (AARP, NRA, AFL-CIO, etc.) do exert an influence on government, and I'd argue that most attempts to "regulate" industry are captured by incumbents to make it easier for them by making it harder for new entrants in the markets. This also applies to campaign finance "reform".
But at the end of the day, if you don't have a product or service that customers want to buy, your company is dead, regardless of how much of the global capitalist infrastructure it controls.
Which means instead of lampooning organizations like the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street we need to take from them the best of their ideas and act on it.
It means for Americans doing your best to get candidates who do not have a D or R next to their name some traction.
It means for those in Europe figuring out how to get out from under Brussels - best of luck, I don't know your politics.
Whatever it is, you won't do it through tax laws so please no, they need to pay more, corporations merely hide the heavy taxation the population is under, see indirect taxes.
So, anytime you see a politician wanting to expand your benefits be wary, the money comes from somewhere and if its not paid its owed and those to whom we owe call the shots.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
And not the Keynesian cargo cult economics which is so prevalent.
To start with, go find out what money is.
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Trotting out a list of financial companies and then doing a pseudo-technical analysis to establish that they 'control' the economy seems like nothing but an effort at demagogy. For example, stockbrokers ALWAYS exercise a measure of control because most of their clients choose to have the stockbrokers retain their shares and vote them on their behalf. Similarly, every bank always exercises 'control' of the funds that you have on deposit so what would be suspicious is if there was a large bank that was NOT on the list. Everyone wants to hate financial companies when they have less wealth than they feel like they are entitled to. There will always be a few large financial companies in 'control' of the economy unless we enact legislation that limits the maximum size of financial companies in which case we would have more financial companies exercising control of the economy but nothing else otherwise much different. The alternative to having financial companies in 'control' of the economy is to have everyone keep their money in the form of gold bullion in their mattress (been there, done that) which would result in a shrunken world economy driven by barter or to have a huge government apparatus in 'control' (been there, done that too.)
they threatened to take our economy with them. I suppose the gov't could have let them die, then stepped in to keep the economy going. But you wouldn't have liked that either, would you?
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Can Monsanto control you into wanting to eat food?
Can you teach them a lesson by refusing to eat food?