Thursday, April 27, 2006
Who owns the world?
The Americans and the Europeans, to put it bluntly.
Here's the latest chart: the 'home base' of the top 25 transnational corporations (TNCs), measured by assets.
How I made this: the UN makes an annual Top 100 TNCs list, as part of their World Investment Reports. Not in handy Excel format, but in decidedly unhandy Adobe .pdfs. So I
i) downloaded 'em all.
ii) counted out the number of TNCs headquarted in the U.S., EU, & Japan in the top 25; and
iii) added up their assets
And did this for each year. My eyes hurt. But it's all worth it, cos I can conclude the following things:
a) American TNCs are doing just fine.
b) The Europeans are doing more than fine. It's remarkable how their values spiked up at the end of the 90s. Companies like Vodaphone, Vivendi and other, non-V companies emerged out of 'nowhere'.
c) The Japanese are a spent force. This puts paid to the racist hysteria floating around right-wing websites that the Japanese are 'taking over' the U.S. The numbers of TNCs they have in the top 25 has actually shrunk, from 6 to 2, and their assets have stagnated.
d) The Chinese might be producing a lot, but most of it is for foreigners. Only one Chinese company, Hutchinson-Whampoa, shows up in 14th place, starting in 2001. That's the definition of a dependent economy.
Sorry guys, you're still not big enough - Chinese workers get ready to re-stock the dollar store
As usual, all this raises far more questions than answers:
Loads of new things?
This is not new productive activity. For example, in 2001, Vodaphone debuted at number 1 as the world's biggest TNC, with $223 billion in assets. But there weren't $223 billion worth of new cell phones made that year. The rapid growth of these companies is due to mergers and acquisitions (M&As): companies eating up each other. It would be interesting to compare M&As to productive growth, to see how much of capitalism is making things for people (as the capitalists like to claim), and how much is the capitalists dividing the spoils amongst themselves.
Silly humans! Your purchase of cell phones only brings us closer to world domination!
Financial capital?
These are 'non-financial TNCs'. Yet General Electric, part of the U.S. list, has its own financing division. Most large companies do. Chrysler begat Daimler-Chrysler, which begat Daimler-Chrysler-DeutscheBank. The lines between firms are blurring. But economists still insist on calling them 'car' or 'electrical' companies.
When they really can't make up their minds, like with Mitsubishi, they call them diversified. We've reached a point in monopoly capital where we can't really say what a capitalist firm does. Their owners own everything.
Transnationalism?
As I note, in 1999 Daimler-Chrysler debuted as 'German' - so I included it in the EU figures. In 2000, the UN called it U.S./German. So how can we talk about American or German capital anymore? It's both. Does this make a mockery of the entire exercise? Ownership continues to be centred in a few places, as the chart clearly shows. But those places are starting to blur.
This could also explain the discrepancy with the FDI chart I posted. There may be less economic activity taking place within American borders. But the owners remain the same, and they're getting bigger. Does ownership equal economic health? I have no idea.
I've seen the future baby, and it is murder
Capital is not everywhere & nowhere. For a lark, the UN has started to measure the 50 largest TNCs from 'developing' countries. Only the Chinese company makes the '100 biggest' list. Clearly, there's a solid and growing divide between the rich and poor countries. But it appears to matter less and less where in that bloc the capitalists are.
Keep out the people, keep out the poor - U.S. border fence at Tijuana, Mexico
Here's the latest chart: the 'home base' of the top 25 transnational corporations (TNCs), measured by assets.
How I made this: the UN makes an annual Top 100 TNCs list, as part of their World Investment Reports. Not in handy Excel format, but in decidedly unhandy Adobe .pdfs. So I
i) downloaded 'em all.
ii) counted out the number of TNCs headquarted in the U.S., EU, & Japan in the top 25; and
iii) added up their assets
And did this for each year. My eyes hurt. But it's all worth it, cos I can conclude the following things:
a) American TNCs are doing just fine.
b) The Europeans are doing more than fine. It's remarkable how their values spiked up at the end of the 90s. Companies like Vodaphone, Vivendi and other, non-V companies emerged out of 'nowhere'.
c) The Japanese are a spent force. This puts paid to the racist hysteria floating around right-wing websites that the Japanese are 'taking over' the U.S. The numbers of TNCs they have in the top 25 has actually shrunk, from 6 to 2, and their assets have stagnated.
d) The Chinese might be producing a lot, but most of it is for foreigners. Only one Chinese company, Hutchinson-Whampoa, shows up in 14th place, starting in 2001. That's the definition of a dependent economy.
Sorry guys, you're still not big enough - Chinese workers get ready to re-stock the dollar store
As usual, all this raises far more questions than answers:
Loads of new things?
This is not new productive activity. For example, in 2001, Vodaphone debuted at number 1 as the world's biggest TNC, with $223 billion in assets. But there weren't $223 billion worth of new cell phones made that year. The rapid growth of these companies is due to mergers and acquisitions (M&As): companies eating up each other. It would be interesting to compare M&As to productive growth, to see how much of capitalism is making things for people (as the capitalists like to claim), and how much is the capitalists dividing the spoils amongst themselves.
Silly humans! Your purchase of cell phones only brings us closer to world domination!
Financial capital?
These are 'non-financial TNCs'. Yet General Electric, part of the U.S. list, has its own financing division. Most large companies do. Chrysler begat Daimler-Chrysler, which begat Daimler-Chrysler-DeutscheBank. The lines between firms are blurring. But economists still insist on calling them 'car' or 'electrical' companies.
When they really can't make up their minds, like with Mitsubishi, they call them diversified. We've reached a point in monopoly capital where we can't really say what a capitalist firm does. Their owners own everything.
Transnationalism?
As I note, in 1999 Daimler-Chrysler debuted as 'German' - so I included it in the EU figures. In 2000, the UN called it U.S./German. So how can we talk about American or German capital anymore? It's both. Does this make a mockery of the entire exercise? Ownership continues to be centred in a few places, as the chart clearly shows. But those places are starting to blur.
This could also explain the discrepancy with the FDI chart I posted. There may be less economic activity taking place within American borders. But the owners remain the same, and they're getting bigger. Does ownership equal economic health? I have no idea.
I've seen the future baby, and it is murder
Capital is not everywhere & nowhere. For a lark, the UN has started to measure the 50 largest TNCs from 'developing' countries. Only the Chinese company makes the '100 biggest' list. Clearly, there's a solid and growing divide between the rich and poor countries. But it appears to matter less and less where in that bloc the capitalists are.
Keep out the people, keep out the poor - U.S. border fence at Tijuana, Mexico
