In the decades to come Western society will be controlled by a handful
of transnational corporations wielding more economic power and influence
than many middle sized countries. The annual sales of Wal-Mart in 2014
was $486 billion whilst that of Poland, ranked 23 in GDP by the World Bank,
with a population of near forty million was $546 billion.
The development of these businesses based on a profit model escape political
control. As a result their decisions and market domination will inevitably
have a profound effect on democracy.
In Great Britain there are at present :
5 big banks
5 major food retailers
5 main fuel distributers
5 major automobile distributers
5 large civil engineering companies
5 main energy suppliers
4/5 Main road haulage groups
4 Major audit partnerships
3/5 major restaurant chains
This is compounded by the advance of technology and the loss of manufacturing
jobs, this will acarcebated by the decline of the middle class professionals
resulting in a more unequal society leading to instability and unrest with the
risk of economic decline.
In the past I believed politicians and civil servants ran the country, making
strategic decisions and determining the future, that is not now the case:
little by little power is being devolved to these transnational corporations
where the combined sales of the top two hundred is now greater than the
combined economies of all but the nine most economical powerful countries
in the world.
Education has been promoted by politicians as a solution to this problem in
Great Britain, where school/college leaving age has been extended by two
years to eighteen, but with little visible success so far.
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