a glimpse into Corporate America

Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, military control or corporate ties. Oligarchy should not be associated always as a rule by wealth (the appropriate term for that being plutocracy), although wealth is a common distinguishing factor. Oligarchs can simply be a privileged group, and do not have to be connected by bloodlines as in a monarchy [1]

Definitions

Corporate oligarchy is a form of power, governmental or operational, where such power effectively rests with a small, elite group of inside individuals, sometimes from a small group of educational institutions, or influential economic entities or devices, such as banks, media producers and broadcasters, commercial entities, lobbyists that act in complicity with, or at the whim of the oligarchy, often with little or no regard for constitutionally protected prerogative. Monopolies are sometimes granted to state-controlled entities, such as the Royal Charter granted to the East India Company, or privileged bargaining rights to unions (labor monopolies) with very partisan political interests. Today's multinational corporations function as corporate oligarchies with influence over democratically elected officials. The severity of the effect increases as corporations transcend the national borders and become transnationals.

Corporatocracy is a term used to suggest an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests. The term was used by author John Perkins in his 2004 book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", where he described corporatocracy as a collective composed of corporations, banks, and governments. This collective is known as what author C. Wright Mills would call the "Power Elite". The Power Elite are wealthy individuals who hold prominent positions in Corporatocracies. These individuals control the process of determining society's economic and political policies. [2]

Corporate America et al.

Interlocking directorates (defined as the linkages among corporations created by individuals who sit on two or more corporate boards) have been a source of research attention since the Progressive Era at the turn of the 20th century. Today corporate interlocks are analyzed with bigger databases and sophisticated network programs. And the idea that the few dominate the many will not come as news to those gathered either to "occupy wall street" or to "occupy everywhere". But up until these current days it has been more or less a "conspiracy theory" level event, that a few corporations could control the global market and essentially the world.

An organised study led by S. Vitali of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, showed that out of over 43,000 transnational corporations (TNCs), relatively few control almost 80% of the global economy. The team found a core of 1318 companies (mostly financial services companies) with an average of 20 control links each amongst themselves. These 1318 companies represent only 0.7% of the TNCs but 18.7% of the revenue of all TNCs. When one adds in the 59.8% of the revenues from companies on the wing of the bow-tie controlled by those in the knot, these companies control almost 80% of the global economy. And to top that, "4/10 of the control over the economic value of TNCs in the world is held, via a complicated web of ownership relations, by a group of 147 TNCs in the core, which has almost full control over itself." [3], [4]

An article back in 2005 by G.W. Domhoff concluded that : "… many corporate leaders don't just sit at their home corporation attending to their own business. Through meeting together on boards of directors, those who are interlocking directors develop social cohesion and shared perspectives to go with their economic power bases. This is why such people are the core of the leadership group for the upper class and the corporate community, which I call the power elite. However, we should not make too much out of the exact shape of the interlock network at any given moment because too much can change when the corporate network is no longer made up strictly of owners and financiers who are using their directorships to coordinate their economic interests." [5]

The truth is that by opting out the facts that individuals tend to band together and to the strongest leaders, and simply that oligarchy has been a most successful model in accumulating wealth and exerting power control all along since the Ancient days, which logically points us towards the reasons why we see such corporate concentration, we are in danger of literally masking a real stability risk for the global economy, with an illuminati-global-conspiracy-type-hollywood-drama-thriller, and end up with a mere witch hunt, which in turn will only be a very convenient down rating of the whole issue. 

"About 2400 years ago a Greek general named Pericles stood before an Athens audience and proclaimed, "We are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not the few, with equal justice to all alike in their private dispute." Let this current Greek crisis serve as a reminder to all of us that democracy is under attack today. It will only survive if you and I (the People) insist on governments that are "in the hands of the many and not the few." [7]

As corporations become increasingly interdependent, and their workings and influence globally coordinated, some do try to navigate the apparent endless maze. 

LittleSis is a project of Public Accountability Initiative, a 501(c)3 organization focused on corporate and government accountability that receives financial support from the Sunlight Foundation, Harnisch Foundation, and Elbaz Family Foundation, and benefit from free software written by the open source community. Their work focuses on bringing transparency to influential social networks by tracking the key relationships of politicians, business leaders, lobbyists, financiers, and their affiliated institutions.

LittleSis features interlinked profiles of powerful individuals and organizations in the public and private sectors. Profiles detail a wealth of information vital to any investigation of the ways power and money guide the formulation of public policy, from board memberships to campaign contributions, old school ties to government contracts. The site currently offers profiles of 79884 people and 27169 organizations in varying stages of completion. These include, but are not limited to:

Politicians: members of Congress since 1979, governors since 1974, Bush and Obama administration officials.

Business people: Fortune 1000 executives and directors, members of the Forbes 400.

Lobbyists who have lobbied on behalf of Fortune 1000 companies.

Government bodies: US House & Senate; agencies ranging from the Department of Defense to the IRS.

Businesses: Fortune 1000 companies, lobbying firms, top law firms, and other private companies.

Non-profits such as foundations, think tanks, and political organizations.

LittleSis offers some data about these people and organizations themselves, but it's focus is on the relationships between them. There are currently 475186 relationships linking entities profiled in the database.

They Rule aims to provide a glimpse of some of the relationships of the US ruling class. It takes as its focus the boards of some of the most powerful U.S. companies, which share many of the same directors. Some individuals sit on 5, 6 or 7 of the top 1000 companies. It allows users to browse through these interlocking directories and run searches on the boards and companies. A user can save a map of connections complete with their annotations and email links to these maps to others. They Rule is a starting point for research about these powerful individuals and corporations. They Rule is an online tool where you can map and visualize board interlocks. You can look up specific people or simply play around and click to see various interlocks. 

Extras
Some interesting information related to the subject herein, either directly or as a "spin-off", that I didn't want to include in the main body.

Time stamps for this interview :

0:00:10 Defining the Corporatocracy, the revolving door policy

0:04:00 Defining an Economic Hitman, creating a global empire

0:06:25 The assassination of Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, President of Guatemala

0:07:50 The assassination of Jaime Roldós Aguilera, President of Ecuador

0:11:20 The assassination of Salvador Allende, President of Chile

0:13:20 The assassination of Omar Torrijos, President of Panama

0:16:00 Killing Manuel Noriega (Panama) together with 2000 civilians

0:20:35 Replacing Mohammad Mosaddegh (President of Iran) with a dictator

0:23:20 Hugo Chavez (President of Venezuela) as key figure for a democratic revolution

0:27:15 Saddam Hussein (President of Irak), Military as the last option

0:30:30 The "divide and conquer"-principle, chaos as a tool, Africa

0:34:25 Causality, Problems resulting from destoying the economies of poor countries

0:36:00 Top military people don't want war, corporations want war

0:37:25 Desperate people : "Guerillas", "communists", "terrorists"

0:43:50 Replacing the Gold Standard with the Oil Standard

0:48:00 Energy and consumption, oil as an instrument of control

0:51:40 Reflections, transforming the empire

0:54:20 Greed as a measure of "success", maximizing profit at any cost

0:58:25 Sustainability - Absurd question : Should we become sustainable ?

1:02:00 Fate of Coincidence, how to react to coincidence, future generations

1:04:45 Change - How to make the world a better place ?

1:08:15 End of interview

Oiligarchy is a playable commentary on the oil industry. The player takes the role of an “oiligarch” managing the extraction business in the homeland and overseas and lobbies the government to keep the carbon-fossil based economy as profitable as possible. Now you can be the protagonist of the petroleum era. Explore and drill around the world, corrupt politicians, stop alternative energies and increase the oil addiction. Be sure to have fun before the resources begin to deplete !

PLAY THE GAME >>>

The average CEO pay of companies in the S&P 500 Index rose to $12.94 million in 2011. Overall, the average level of CEO pay in the S&P 500 Index increased 13.9 percent in 2011, following a 22.8 percent increase in CEO pay in 2010. CEOs supposedly deserve all this money for increasing shareholder value. Runaway CEO pay is one reason why income inequality is growing in the United States. A Congressional Budget Office report found that inequality has risen dramatically, with the top 1 percent receiving most of the income growth between 1979 and 2007. [6]

[1] Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy

[2] Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy

[3] Ref. http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/proof-of-global-domination-by-a-few-corporations.html

[4] Ref. PDF http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.5728v2.pdf

[5] Ref. http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/corporate_community.html

[6] Ref. http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/CEO-Pay-and-the-99/Trends-in-CEO-Pay

[7] Ref. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-perkins/economic-chaos-loans-gree_b_901949.html

Resources, should you wish to expand more on the subjects :

http://www.theyrule.net/

http://littlesis.org/

http://www.transnationale.org/

http://www.corpwatch.org/