PREFACE/XXImarkets risk doing severe damage to the Latin American economies'
('A Financial Taint South America Doesn't Deserve', International
Herald Tribune, 19-20 September 1998).
Of course, the authors of these remarks have not exactly been won
over to the cause of the oppressed. That being said, they do indeed
reflect the unease Establishment economists feel over the patent
inability of governments, financial markets and the international
financial institutions to get the global economy back on a path
towards growth.
A FLURRY OF CORPORATE MERGERS
The tendency towards concentration in the corporate sector has been
given a huge boost as we approach the twenty-first century. There
were more mega-mergers in 1998 than in any previous year - in
banking, insurance, oil, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, automobiles
and the media. This merger frenzy has amplified the power of a
handful of companies over whole sectors of the global economy. The
mergers have gone hand in hand with a renewed offensive on the
employment front; they invariably mean dismissals and downsizing
through 'voluntary' retirement.
At the same time, this striking increase in the concentration of
capital has not necessarily meant greater stability for the companies
that come out on top. Takeovers and mergers have proceeded with
such reckless abandon that the new mega-firms are not likely to be
any more resilient than other companies when confronted with
abrupt shifts in the world economy.
WEALTH CONCENTRATED IN FEWER AND FEWER HANDS
In its 19 9 7 and 1998 reports, the UNDP keeps a tab on how many of
the world's wealthiest individuals one would have to assemble to
come up with a total fortune of one trillion (one thousand billion)
dollars - keeping in mind that this sum is equal to the annual income
of nearly 50 per cent of the world population.
Using data from Forbes magazine's annual listing of the world's
wealthiest individuals, the UNDP calculates that in 1996 it would
have taken 348 of the world's mega-rich to put together one trillion
dollars. By 19 9 7, however, this figure was brought down to 2 2 5. At
this rate, in a few years the richest 150 people might well own as