Large Corporations and Economic Power

Corporations dominate the American landscape. Nearly 50 percent of working Americans are in the employ of corporations with 1,000 or more employees. In 2005, the five largest U.S. corporations had revenues of more than a trillion dollars and employed more than 2.5 million employees.2 The 50 largest corporate employers had an average employment of 231,000 and each one of these companies employed more than 100,000 people. These numbers give some idea about the significance of giant corporations to the economy. In addition, in the past century corporations have become the organization of choice for raising capital for large investment projects. The purchase of corporate stocks and bonds has become a popular means of investment for millions of households. Corporations’ importance, power, and influence go well beyond economics. They play a major role in politics, media, culture, entertainment, medicine, detary habits, and society in general. They determine labor practices, such as the two-wage-earner family, the acceptability of a seminomadic existence for their executives, and laid-off workers. They, although not alone, instill the tradition of the primacy of a job above all other priorities. Yet despite their size and influence, they draw relatively little attention or allow attention to be drawn from a mostly corporate-owned media—they fly below the radar. Most newspapers and television news rarely discuss or mention their powerful position in the economy and society. In recent years, they have been instrumental in reshaping the global economy and with it global politics and culture.