The top 200 corporations/global role

[Patricia Dines <73652.1202@CompuServe.COM>]

Interesting facts/perspective... for your info ... P. Dines

--- FORWARD ---
From: Peoples Weekly World, INTERNET:scott@rednet.org
Sender: o-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu
To: Patricia Dines, 73652,1202
Date: Mon, Nov 11, 1996, 4:42 PM
Subject: The top 200 corporations: bigger than big

**The top 200 corporations: bigger than big **

(This article is from the November 9, 1996 issue of the People's
Weekly World. May be reprinted with proper credit.)

By Julia Lutsky

The poorest 4.5 billion people on Earth - 80 percent of its
inhabitants - together earn only a little more than half the
amount earned from the sales made by the world's 200 largest
corporations. So says the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in
Washington, D.C., in its recent report, "The Top 200: The Rise of
Global Corporate Power."

"Two hundred giant corporations, most of them larger than many
national economies, now control well over a quarter of the
world's economic activity," states the report written by Sarah
Anderson and John Cavanagh. "Philip Morris is larger than New
Zealand and it operates in 170 countries ... The most alarming
finding is that as corporate concentration has risen, corporate
profits have soared, yet workers and communities are getting a
shrinking piece of the growing pie."

The income of these corporations is growing both absolutely and
as a proportion of the world's total Gross Domestic Product
(GDP). In 1982 world GDP was $12.6 trillion, of which sales of
the 200 equaled a bit less than a quarter. By 1995 world GDP had
doubled to $25.224 trillion; the sales of the top 200 had
increased to more than 28 percent of world GDP.

Japan and the United States accounted for 115 of the companies in
1982 and 117 in 1995. In 1982 only 15 of them were headquartered
in Japan. Today, however, 58 are headquartered there and account
for 39 percent of the 200's total sales while the 59 U.S. firms
generate only 28 percent of total sales.

Six of the top 10 companies in terms of sales - but not corporate
profits - are based in Japan, three in the United States and one
in South Korea. Ninety-three percent of the top 200 firms are
based in only seven countries - the United States, Japan,
Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The total sales of these corporations exceeded one-quarter of the
world's 1995 GDP. Only two developing countries, South Korea and
Brazil, have firms in the top 200: Their six firms account for
under 2 percent of the 200's total sales.

Of the 191 countries in the world in 1995 only 21 had economies
which exceeded that of the largest corporation, Mitsubishi of
Japan. Mitsubishi had sales of $184.5 billion, more than the GDP
of Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation. In the
Americas, only the United States, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and
Argentina had GDPs greater than Mitsubishi's sales income. In
fact, the income of each of the 20 largest global corporations
exceeded the GDP of every country in Latin America except Brazil,
Mexico and Argentina.

The 200 corporations represent but one half of one percent of the
40,000 firms whose operations extend beyond the boundaries of the
nations in which they are headquartered. These 40,000 firms
conduct their business through some 250,000 affiliates. When
corporations establish branches in other countries to produce
parts then sold back to the original firms - or to affiliates in
still other countries - should this be considered trade?
One-third of world trade is made of just such "sales and
purchases." Forty percent of Japanese exports are to other
branches of the parent firms.

If the leading corporations account for a quarter of the world's
economic activity should they not also employ at least a quarter
of the world's work force? That would total about 650 million
people, according to U.N. figures cited by IPS. Actually, they
employ only about 18.8 million, less than one percent of those
workers. Only 118,000 people were employed in the 13 trading
firms represented in the top 200.

This "industry" had greater sales - $1.216 trillion in 1995 -
than any other industry represented. Automobiles, the second most
profitable industry, employed more than 2.876 million people.
Three of the 15 auto companies were U.S. corporations: General
Motors, Ford and Chrysler, who employed 1.168 million between
them. GM, with 709,000 employees, is the largest employer in the
entire group of corporations.

Non-productive industry, i.e., the 63 trading, banking, insurance
and finance firms, accounted for some $2.490 trillion in 1995
sales, 35 percent of the total sales of the 200, nearly 10
percent of world GDP. Five trading companies generated 12 percent
of the entire 200's sales - 3 percent of world GDP. Telecommunications alone now
accounts for $289 billion in sales annually - 1 percent of the world's economy.

But how much of that capital is available to the world's people?
The poorest 85 percent of the world's population live in
countries whose GDPs are less than $1,000 per person. By
comparison, the GDP per person in the United States is around $25,000.

There is much ballyhoo that this is the era of the "information
super highway." As we visit AT&T's and GTE's world-wide computer
web sites, we should remember that more than 90 percent of the
world's people do not have access to telephones. In the words of
the IPS report, "the top 200 are creating a global apartheid, not
a global village."
##30##

************************************************************
***       *  Read the Peoples Weekly World  *     *********
   ****   *  Sub info: pww@igc.apc.org      *  ****    *
       ****  235 W. 23rd St. NYC 10011      ***      *   **
   ****   *  $20/yr - $1-2 mos trial sub    *  ****    *
***       *                                 *     *********
************************************************************