Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...the-world.html

The study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to
empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the
mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive
corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational
corporations (TNCs).

From Orbis 2007 (a database listing 37 million companies and investors
worldwide) they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships
linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies
controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each
company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.

The work revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships.
Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average
they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per
cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own
through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and
manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per
cent of global revenues.

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of
it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit
companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the
super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the
network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to
control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were
financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan
Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
21. Morgan Stanley
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
23. Northern Trust Corporation
24. Société Générale
25. Bank of America Corporation
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc
27. Invesco plc
28. Allianz SE
29. TIAA
30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company
31. Aviva plc
32. Schroders plc
33. Dodge & Cox
34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (*)
35. Sun Life Financial Inc
36. Standard Life plc
37. CNCE
38. Nomura Holdings Inc
39. The Depository Trust Company
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
41. ING Groep NV
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
45. Vereniging Aegon
46. BNP Paribas
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
48. Resona Holdings Inc
49. Capital Group International Inc
50. China Petrochemical Group Company

* Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used