A Handful of Super-Corporations Control The Fate of The World, Chilling Report Shows
A small group of super-powerful corporations has become a dominant force that essentially controls human industry and shapes the modern world we live in, scientists say.
In a new study, an international team of researchers suggests that this elite cadre of dominant transnational corporations (TNCs, sometimes also called multinationals) may wield an outsized influence over the planet and its inhabitants.
"The scale at which TNCs operate, and the speed and connectivity they galvanise across the world is unprecedented in history," the researchers, led by environmental scientist Carl Folke from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, explain in their new paper.
"TNCs have become a defining feature of the interconnected planet of people and nature, with humans as a hyper-dominant species in the biosphere affecting global patterns of ecological change."
Of course, these kinds of observations are not new. We can easily note the impact of super-corporations almost everywhere in human industry.
You can see it in the environment, where just 100 companies are responsible for over 70 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
You can see it in technology, where giant tech firms enjoy monopolistic dominance over search, social, and more.
Pharmaceutical companies are so powerful they spawn entire health crises; energy companies are so powerful they can predict climate crises decades in advance.
The communication of science itself is not untouched by these phenomena of corporate consolidation and control.
But just because TNCs exert so much power doesn't mean they can't act responsibly, the researchers say.
