http://themindunleashed.org/2013/12/10-corporations-control-almost-everything-buy.html
This... is rather scary actually. To see how much is being consolidated into small power blocs...
The website itself is a bit... interesting, I know... but how much truth is there behind this? Any economic experts out there that can confirm/deny these things?
I'm no expert but I've at least had a couple of courses in economics. As you know the history of our economy is rooted in what were first monopolies and oligarchies. The US itself emerged out of enterprises like the East India Tea Company, the slave trade and related agribusiness, the fur trade and the search for El Dorado. Of course countless small businesses rode the coattails of these main investors, gaining leverage esp after the uprooting and massacres of the indigenous Americans, and the theft of their lands, waters, and game. That is, the little guy benefits as long as Big Brother wipes out all opposition. So the word "capitalism" conveys the idea of aggregation of wealth from the get-go, even as people worship it and the sense of freedom and opportunity they associate with the proceeds of those thefts and massacres. And that centralized aggregation of wealth trickles down to the parasitic and opportunistic small businesses that benefit from the established infrastructure. The term "monopoly" more closely references the ushering in of the industrial age, esp. by the railroad, banking and oil entrepreneurs. The principle of the board game "Monopoly" hinges on this, and successfully simulates how quickly paper money equates to real value, in that it buys expensive capital investments and real property.
Having said all of that, which has very little to do with the particulars of economics, it strikes me that this analysis of huge corporations controlling everything is sort of off kilter. I mean, yes of course they do, but it's nothing new. It's the foundation of what economists call growth and Republicans call progress. In the model I prefer, progress is measured by literary statements like "you will know them by how they treat their prisoners". In case that's unclear, I simply mean that true progress is a purely humanitarian enterprise, not a purely economic one. I will set aside for the moment the fact that economics drives our ability and desire to be humane to one another. For example, if I were a trillionaire, I would buy all of my friends on this board a trip to the Cayman Islands, and I would buy all the trolls a night in the emergency rooms and jails, followed by a class on ethics.
The diagrams seem to show how the product lines of these big corporations were so successful that the individual products begin to look like mega corporations. And the others are subsidiaries and so forth. The fact is, consumers have loved these products for several generations. If there was no consumer belief in the value of the products, then people wouldn't buy them.
Also let me say this: yesterday I drove a terminal homeless patient to a food pantry. She emerged with a shopping cart half full of groceries. Most of them were identifiably mega-corporation products, plus a few off brand items that probably are feeling both empathy and a desire to take advantage of the tax credits. So, in other words, the products really do have value. In the event of a severe earthquake or weather event, watch people line up to collect a share of the output of the huge corporate monsters. We can be cynical, but at worst it's a symbiotic relationship. We are parasites to the cereal makers, because without them we have to do some work to make our own breakfast. Etc.
But it isn't necessarily evil, once you acknowledge that all of the massacres, enslavements and land thefts need to be compensated, and all the present day victims of disaster, abuse, and crime -- to include the criminals themselves -- are rehabilitated and protected from reactionary reprisals against "handouts". With all of that "human progress" in place, the rest almost doesn't matter. I wouldn't care if there was a king and queen sitting in a palace overlooking my little serfdom, as long as they were intelligent, thoughtful and generous.
