New Scientist report: “Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world”

By Clive Menzies for Critical Thinking, presented to the meeting “The future of Occupy”

A study published in the New Scientist shows 147 “super-entities” control 40% of a network of 43,060 trans-national corporations and 60% of their revenues which means these 147 entities run global business. In addition, they control, media, politics, think-tanks, NGOs and public institutions and are dominated by financial companies – there is a high concentration of banks in the top 20; 45 of the top 50 “super-entities” are financials. Ownership of these corporations is concentrated in the hands of family dynasties such as the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Vanderbilts, Morgans, Rothschilds etc. – This is the web of power which runs the world.

This concentration of power translates into Inequality, Environmental Destruction, Conflict and Wars. The source of power is control over: Land, Money and Labour. The value of the land should be shared by all but is controlled and captured by the few. Landowners were the most powerful constituency in UK politics until the beginning of the 20th century. Interest on money allows banks to create money from nothing and dominate commerce and politics: “Permit me to issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws” – Mayer Amschel Rothschild. Finally, we are conditioned to accept that to qualify for the means to life, we must have paid employment. We are hobbled like domesticated animals, lacking freedom of movement and thought, enslaved, in many cases, to meaningless occupation.

NHS privatisation, disability and public service cuts are symptoms of a corrupt economic system, all driven by the agenda of the web of power, as are fracking, wars and repression, corruption and criminality.

Politics is puppet theatre and changing governments has little effect because the overarching agenda of the web of power remains dominant.

To break this power, we need to work with activist campaigns to address symptoms but always understand how they relate to the web of power and share that understanding as widely as possible. Once we understand how we are governed and where the source of power lies, we can recover the power to transform our civilisation. Educate and Agitate.