Opinion Sur
There is a fact that should concern all citizens of the world: the shift of power from nation-states to the few financial conglomerates that operate globally, whose power is greater than that of any of the States taken individually. These really hold the real power in all its branches: financial, political, technological, commercial, media and military.
This fact has been studied and followed by one of our best economists, graduate professor of PUC-SP with extensive international experience: Ladislau Dowbor. Two studies of his authorship summarize the vast literature on the subject: “The network of global corporate power” of 04.01.2012 (http: /www.dowbor.org/wp) and the most recent one in September 2016: “Corporate governance: the chaotic financial giants’ power.
It is difficult to condense the mass of information that seems frightening. Dowbor summarizes:
“The really existing world power is largely in the hands of giants that nobody elected, and on which there are fewer controls. They are billions of dollars in the hands of private groups whose scope is the planet while global regulatory capabilities will go on all fours. Recent research shows that 147 groups control 40% of the global corporate system, being 75% of them banks. Each of the 29 financial giants generates an average of $ 1.8 trillion dollars, more than the GDP of Brazil, the eighth world economic power. The power has shifted radically now “(cf. Corporate governance, op. Cit).
In addition to the specific literature, Dowbor refers data from two large institutions that are systematically over the years dealing with the mechanisms of the corporate giants: the Swiss Federal Research Institute of Technology (rivaling with the famous MIT from the US) and Credit Suisse, the bank leading the great fortunes of the world and, therefore, knows about these things.
The data presented by these sources are surprising: the richest 1% controls more than half of the world’s wealth. Sixty-two families have equal wealth to the poorest half of the population of Earth. Sixteen groups control almost all trade in commodities (cereals, minerals, energy, land and water). Because all the food obey market laws, their prices rise and fall at the mercy of speculation, removing vast poor people the right to have access to sufficient and healthy eating.
The 29 planetary giants, of which 75% are banks, starting with the Bank of America and ending with the Deutsche Bank, are considered “systemically important” as their eventual bankruptcy (remember that the greatest, Lehamn Brothers of North America, filed for bankruptcy) take the entire system into the abyss or very close, with dire consequences for all mankind. The worst is that there is no regulation for its operation, nor can it, because regulations are national and they always act planetary. There is still no global governance to take care not only of finance but also of social and ecological destiny of life and that of Earth-system itself.
Our concepts evaporate when, Dowbor reminds us, we read on the cover of The Economist that the turnover of the company Black Rock is 14 trillion dollars, while the US GDP is 15 trillion and that of poor Brazil barely reaches $ 1.6 trillion. These planetary giants handle about 50 trillion dollars, equivalent to the total public debt of the planet.
The important thing is to know their purpose and logic: simply seeking unlimited profits. A food company buys a mine without any experience in the industry, only because it makes profits. There is no humanitarian purpose, for example, taking a small portion of the profits for a trust against hunger or to reduce infant mortality. For them, that is the task of the State and not shareholders’ who just want profits and more profits.
For these reasons we understand the sacred irascibility of Pope Francisco against a system that only wants to accumulate at the expense of the poverty of the majority and the degradation of nature. Economy, he says, “which is centered on the god of money and not the person: this is the fundamental terrorism against all mankind” (in the plane when returning from Poland in September). In his ecological encyclical he calls it an anti-life system and suicidal (# 55).
That system is a murderer, biocide, ecocide, and geocide. How can such inhumanity thrive in the face of the Earth and still say that there is no alternative (TINA = There Is No Alternative)? Life is sacred. And when it is systematically attacked, there will come a day when she might retaliate by destroying who wants to destroy her. This system is seeking its own tragic end. If only the human species would survive.
