[Vision2020] Bowtie: 147 - 40%; 737 - 80% global corporate control

[Kenneth Marcy]

The 147 Companies That Control Everything

Three systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich 
have taken a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide and 
analyzed all 43,060 transnational corporations and share ownerships linking 
them. They built a model of who owns what and what their revenues are and 
mapped the whole edifice of economic power.

They discovered that global corporate control has a distinct bow-tie shape, 
with a dominant core of 147 firms radiating out from the middle. Each of these 
147 own interlocking stakes of one another and together they control 40% of 
the wealth in the network. A total of 737 control 80% of it all. The top 20 
are at the bottom of the post. This is, say the paper’s authors, the first map 
of the structure of global corporate control.

The #occupy movement will eat this up as evidence for massive redistribution 
of wealth. The New Scientist talked to one systems theorist who is 
“disconcerted” at the level of interconnectedness, but not surprised. Such 
structures occur commonly in biology, things like fungus, lichen and weeds. 
Economists say the danger comes when you combine hyperconnection with the 
concentration of power. The Swiss scientists warn that this can lead to an 
unstable environment. No schiesse, Sherlock.

More on the story, and a top 20 list, at the links below:

http://tinyurl.com/6kjqbtw

or

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/22/the-147-companies-that-
control-everything/


Ken