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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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
Yes.
Next Question: How do we topple it?
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And The Onion was sure they'd have all merged to just form one giant corporation by now:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/just-six-corporations-remain,551/
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
"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.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
Global olivearchy.
1% of Olive farmers control over 50% of the world's olives.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
...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.
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.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
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.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If someone is getting filthy rich by corrupting the political system and through financial trickery to game the system in their favor, that doesn't strike me as the same thing as making your wealth via the sweat of your hands. The problem is that a good portion of those at the top of the food chain are not making their vast wealth via the poetic "sweat of the brow" that is such a big part of the American mythos, but are doing it by cheating and stealing, and buying off the political classes, or at the very least overawing them with notions of "too big to fail."
At some point big money and liberty will inevitably collide, and by basically just jumping over the issue by making believe that a fair number of the most extremely wealthy are in fact making that wealth through nefarious means, you're allowing ideology to lead you by the nose, straight into the abyss.
In the olden days, it was recognized that there was were aristocratic and noble classes, and from there could stem some degree of control. The West, by essentially eradicating those classes, has basically allowed them to be recreated, but now philosophically and ideologically seems incapable of applying the same rules that once applied. The idea of noblesse oblige, at least created an underlying idea that those of wealth and privilege owed the lower classes something for their labors, even if it was frequently ignored.
Now essentially we have an aristocracy built on pure greed, that speaks the language of economic egalitarianism, in fact feel themselves quite independent of society. They have encouraged economic and social libertarianism simply because it improves their bottom line. It is essentially a sociopathic aristocracy, and just how long do you think that can go on? At some, as the French Revolution showed, you'll break too many backs, and all these quaint notions of economic and social liberty, of getting rich the old-fashioned way, and offering empty platitudes like "in American you can be whatever you work to accomplish" will no longer sell. Do you think the West has become invulnerable to class warfare?
Right now, it's just crazy hippies and college students bitching about Wall Street. But if there isn't found a way to wrest some political control from the new aristocracy, it will get ugly, and then we'll end up with an awful system like Communism that nobody wants.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I have tried in the past to suggest this and no one seemed to get it. Frankly I think we need to dump the Occupy and the Tea Party and bring back the Bull Moose party. Just read up and Teddy Roosevelt and his square deal. Take his basic concepts and goals and update them for the 21st century. He as far from perfect but he had some good ideas about limit the power of big business the betterment of the nation. Frankly if you think that what one of the greatest Republican presidents did 100 years ago is too liberal.... Well you have issues.
That's a tall order, considering the folks now in control of the Republican party think what a Republican president did 40 years ago is too liberal. (Nixon and the EPA and Clean Water Act)
Although zaibatsu existed from the 19th century, the term was not in common use until after World War I. By definition, the "zaibatsu" were large family-controlled vertical monopolies consisting of a holding company on top, with a wholly owned banking subsidiary providing finance, and several industrial subsidiaries dominating specific sectors of a market, either solely, or through a number of sub-subsidiary companies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
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.
Deleted
"The 147 Corporations Controlling Most of the Global Economy"
Then we find out that it's 147 banks that control 40% of the financial sector.
How is this controlling most of the global economy? The financial sector is about 30% of the global economy, and these banks control 40% of that.
It's more like the top 147 banks control 12% of the global economy.
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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How absurd,
No, of course Microsoft cannot "control" me into buying a Zune. What does that have do to with a chemical corporation controlling congressmen into quietly passing a bill that waives environmental restrictions on dumping toxins into a river? Or prison corporations controlling lobbyists that push for harsher Marijuana laws to expand their prisons? Or every single law passed by "OUR" government being ghost-written by corporate lobbyists?
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Can Monsanto control you into wanting to eat food?
Can you teach them a lesson by refusing to eat food?