The 147 Corporations Controlling Most of the Global Economy 572
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?"
Re:I'm actually suprised it's that many (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Absolutely. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:I'm actually suprised it's that many (Score:5, Interesting)
Sort of like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_life_of_George_W._Bush [wikipedia.org]
Found a company (anybody can do that, costs almost nothing). Sell shares to some investors, attract a few big names. Run it into the ground so that it fails, but...
Sell out to a second company who wants your goodwill (those big names) plus whatever assets you managed not to squander, become CEO of second company which also fails, and...
Sell out to a third company who still wants that goodwill, those names, the top political cover (your daddy is president, after all), get a seat on the board of directors, and y'know, damned if that company doesn't start to suck wind and fail due to mismanagement as well. Alas, now there is no sugar daddy outside corporation willing to buy, the company is out of money but the stock is still sitting up there at optimistic prices because the ordinary shareholders do not yet know that the company is down to its few days worth of operating capital.
Borrow money from a bank. Buy into a cushy deal that manages to both suck off money from the taxpayer and screw the actual owner of the land seized for the project. Ask counsel of that failing company that bought the failed company that bought the failed company you originally founded if selling off stock right before the company is about to run out of money is "insider trading". Counsel says yes, damn skippy it is, don't do it.
Do it anyway, pay off loan and manage to pocket a quarter of a million actual profit right before the company loses 2/3 of its book value when the running-out-of-money-with-no-income-to-replace-it shit hits the fan. Wait a few years, cushy deal pays you $15 million dollars in profits -- not bad for return on three failed companies you personally ran or helped to run (you weren't on the board of the cushy deal -- by then everybody but the voters in Texas and the United States knew you were a complete klutz who lost money on every deal you actually ran or helped run). Even on this final deal there was nothing like an actual, honest profit in the payout. The taxpayers of Texas are still paying for the actual sports dome for the Rangers; the profit Bush realized was more or less paid directly from taxpayer pockets into his own, and who knows what the landowner ever got out of the deal (probably nothing)...
The moral of this sad tale is that it isn't just a network of companies -- it is a network of people, all born into wealthy families, owning or controlling the large corporations, looking out for each other and protecting all of the "insiders" while shooting, burning, and clubbing the dead bodies until they stop twitching of all of the outsiders that seek to break in to this tiny enclave of wealth and power. These are the people that control the Fed. They control (or are) many of the governors, senators, presidents of our country. They own huge blocks of stock in the largest and most powerful companies or they sit on the board of directors and draw huge salaries because of their political influence. Insider trading is a way of life -- a wink is as good as a nod -- and make a profit (like Bush) from every failure where the ordinary shareholders lost wads of money.
They exist, impervious in our society, simply because we lack the will to oppose them.
rgb
Re:No, it doesn't mean there's a global oligarchy (Score:4, Interesting)
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?