SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF GLOBAL OLIGARCHY

Does one 'super-corporation' run the global economy? Study claims it could be terrifyingly unstable

• Research found that 147 companies formed a 'super entity' within group, controlling 40 per cent of its  wealth

By Rob Waugh
Last updated at 12:00 PM on 20th October 2011

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A University of Zurich study 'proves' that a small group of companies - mainly banks - wields huge power over the global economy.
The study is the first to look at all 43,060 transnational corporations and the web of ownership between them - and created a 'map' of 1,318 companies at the heart of the global economy.
The study found that 147 companies formed a 'super entity' within this, controlling 40 per cent of its  wealth. All own part or all of one another. Most are banks - the top 20 includes Barclays and Goldman Sachs. But the close connections mean that the network could be vulnerable to collapse.

The 1,318 transnational corporations that form the core of the globalised economy - connections show partial ownership of one another, and the size of the circles corresponds to revenue. The companies 'own' through shares the majority of the 'real' economy

'In effect, less than one per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,' says James Glattfelder, a complex systems theorist at the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich, who co-wrote the research, to be published in the journal PLoS One.

SNIP

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2051008/Does-super-corporation-run-global-economy.html#ixzz1bKc8equv