Www.theyrule.net. What to Do When Corporations Rule the World. What to Do When Corporations Rule the World An interview with David C. Korten by Sarah Ruth van Gelder A few jaws dropped among the young activists at a training camp outside Seattle where preparations for the WTO blockade were in high gear. The man who had just joined the circle looked like he might be on his way to a Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
But the young activists soon learned that David Korten is a leading critic of corporate globalization. Many credit him with opening their eyes to the threat to democracy, the environment, community, and our common future posed by transnational corporations, global finance institutions, and the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and IMF. David Korten didn’t always hold these views. Gradually, he found that the US development model was benefitting US corporations, not those it purported to serve. I have been privileged to be a colleague of David’s for some years. David: Corporate power has become even more concentrated and rapacious. The capitalist network that runs the world - physics-math - 19 October 2011. AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears.
An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy. The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable. The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. The Zurich team can. 1. The Corporate 1%: 147 Companies Control 40% of World Economy | HyperVocal.
By HVpolitics October 20, 2011 at 3:25 pm One of the things the Occupy Wall Street movement is protesting, or trying to raise awareness about, is the concentration of wealth and power among financial institutions. What good is democracy if the only voices being heard belong to a small slice of trans-national corporations? New analysis by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich has determined that 147 companies, mainly banks, control the bulk of the world’s economy. The data set was taken from 2007, so it’s possible even less companies are in play, since the information they were working with pre-dated the 2008 economic collapse. Still, it paints a sobering picture of how the economy is dependent less on “Main St.” and more on big business.
New Scientist breaks down the trio’s methodology: From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. A Tightly Knit Network of Companies Runs the World Economy, Says Network Analysis. A small, tightly woven network of companies, mostly banks, wields disproportionate control over the global economy, according to a new study. To the thousands of protesters swept up in the global Occupy movement, it may seem like a case of science confirming the obvious. It's based on a few extrapolations and assumptions that are open to debate, but the overall findings shed some light on the intimate ways 21st century capitalism works — and how those functions can undermine the entire system.
A trio of systems theorists at ETH Zurich examined the world's 43,060 transnational corporations and studied their share ownerships, searching for commonalities that tie the companies together. They worked with techniques used to study complex systems in nature to construct a model of which companies controlled which other companies, and through which networks. They add that domestic anti-trade strictures prevent the core from acting as some kind of cash cartel. [via New Scientist] Who Runs the World ? – Network Analysis Reveals ‘Super Entity’ of Global Corporate Control. Business Published on August 28th, 2011 | by Michael Ricciardi In the first such analysis ever conducted, Swiss economic researchers have conducted a global network analysis of the most powerful transnational corporations (TNCs).
Their results have revealed a core of 737 firms with control of 80% of this network, and a “super entity” comprised of 147 corporations that have a controlling interest in 40% of the network’s TNCs. Strongly Connected Component (SCC); layout of the SCC (1318 nodes and 12,191 links). Node size scales logarithmically with operation revenue, node color with network control (from yellow to red). [Note to the reader: see the very end of this article for a ranking of the top 50 'control holders'] But now we have the results of a global network analysis (Vitali, Glattfelder, Battiston) that, for the first time, lays bare the “architecture” of the global ownership network. What was needed, assert the researchers, was a complex network analysis. and End Notes: Study finds capitalist network of companies runs the world [with list] | ZME Science. A recent study conducted by researchers from Zurich found that a ‘super entity’ of 147 companies controls 40% of the entire corporate network.
As protests against unbalanced financial power sweep from Wall Street to the rest of the world, an analysis of over 43.000 transnational corporations found that a relatively small group of companies (mainly banks) have a totally disproportionate power over global economy. The work is quite controversial, as some assumptions were made in order to complete the study – and these assumptions were challenged by some. However, most complex system analysts claim that the work is a remarkable effort to untangle control in the global economyş taking the study one step further could lead to finding ways of improving capitalism. The idea that a few groups of banks control the global economy is not new to many, but for the first time, this study has moved from ideology to identifying this network of power. “Such structures are common in nature,” says Sugihara.