Corporations

(12/18/2008) - Corporations and national governments are the dominate economic institutions of the world (I’d love to hear which you think is stronger in the comments).  In this article, I will first look at some of the most common but misleading statistics regarding corporations and their size and influence.  Second, I will look at five characteristics shared by all modern corporations, and examine some of the institutional patterns these characteristics help create.

Sometimes corporations are given a bit too much credit.  In his book The Bridge at the Edge of the World, James Gustave Speth writes that, “On a global scale, the thousand largest corporations produce about 80 percent of the world’s output.”  He adds one of the most oft repeated statistics about corporations, “Of the hundred largest economies in the world, fifty-three are corporations.”  Variations of these statistics are commonly used by anti-corporate activists and commentators to characterize their foes.  The point, I guess, is that corporations are all-powerful behemoths.