Philosodata: Country-Sized Power

The one major difference between a large organization and a country is the culturally-accepted power to kill people (particularly criminals) without severe inter-group intervention.

This is a list of organizations that have tremendous power, but aren’t formally defined as “countries”. They sometimes aren’t formally a “monopoly“, but sometimes less than 4 very large organizations operate in a particular domain. If a country owns something by another name (e.g., China) listing it here isn’t valid because that country already has the power to kill whoever they want.

The only way these organizations ever break up is either through government intervention to forcibly separate them and/or complete government disengagement, with the final blow coming through other organizations creatively making competitively similar-quality products. Whether more government or less is the solution is a major political discussion.

Without anyone stopping them, they’ll stomp out trending threats to their power, but only when people aren’t taking risks en masse to compete. They’re very good at changing their faces, so they’ll likely change their names from this list. Since they frequently hide their less-moral activity, it’s not a hill I personally wish to die on, though I’m a target to them simply by compiling this list.

The lack of significant competition makes them rather poor at adding non-commoditized value, though, so this is technically a list of organizations that need replacing if someone can find meaning in taking the necessary risk.

By and large, the only monopolies that severely affect society are food and energy, with information, logistics, and healthcare coming closely afterward.

It’s worth noting that many domains beyond this are very close to worldwide monopoly control, where >80% of the domain controlled by <10 organizations.

This is also not particularly new, and the same stories of today have played out in the past with Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller, International Harvester, American Tobacco, U.S. Steel with J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie, AT&T, and De Beers.

Each of these domains are their own trending empire complete with a dramatic rise, stagnation, and will someday fall. They came mostly through the government permitting mergers and consolidation. The past dissolving of those organizations came with legal precedents outlined in the Sherman Act, Clayton Act, and Robinson-Patman Act, and the legal precedents can be summarized by 13 principles:

  1. Mergers shouldn’t significantly reduce the number of competitors in a market without many competitors to start with.
  2. Mergers shouldn’t eliminate the need for organizations to compete with each other.
  3. Mergers shouldn’t increase the chances the organizations’ leadership will coordinate with each other.
  4. Mergers shouldn’t eliminate someone else from entering the market.
  5. Mergers shouldn’t allow organizations to control products and services their competitors need to compete with them.
  6. Vertical mergers (which increase control of the supply chain) shouldn’t prohibit competition.
  7. Mergers shouldn’t expand a dominant organization’s position.
  8. Mergers shouldn’t create a trend of more mergers.
  9. If a merger is part of a series of multiple acquisitions, the whole series can be taken as a collective case.
  10. If a merger involves a multi-service organization, each service should be taken separately.
  11. If a merger involves buyers competing with each other, the ruling must still consider whether it’ll prevent workers or other sellers from competing.
  12. If an acquisition involves partial ownership, the ruling must still consider how it’ll impact competition.
  13. Mergers shouldn’t create a monopoly or reduce competition.

Food/Drink

4 companies slaughter 66% of the hogs, 85% of the steer, and half the chickens in the USA.

4 companies control 85% of seed sales in the USA, predominantly DowDuPont and Monsanto.

Most pesticides are sold through Syngenta and Corteva.

The two companies that supply sugar in the USA are U.S. Sugar and Imperial Sugar.

Most of the supermarkets in the USA are effectively Walmart, Kroger, and Albertsons.

Baby formula is mostly produced by Abbott, Mead Johnson, and Nestle.

Most of the beer brands are sold by AB InBev.

Most of the soft drinks across the world are sold by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

Most standard-setting organizations (e.g., most tech standards, ACORD) have very little oversight to regulate them.

Most chocolate in the USA is sold by Hershey’s and Mars.

Energy

OPEC owns most of the oil in the Middle East.

Most public services (water, trash, electricity) in the West are government-enforced monopolies without any alternatives.

Alberta, Canada’s energy industry is run by ATCO, Heartland Power, and Transalta.

Healthcare

Bayer owns a huge part of the pharmaceutical industry alongside Monsanto.

Most of the ketamine (an anesthetic/psychedelic) and cannabis is managed by Irwin Naturals.

Most of the hydrocodone (a painkiller) is manufactured by Actavis, a subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceuticals.

A huge portion of veterinary clinics are managed by JAB Consumer Partners.

Most insulin is managed by CVS Caremark, Cigna, and United Healthcare.

A vast portion of branded pharmaceuticals (which are still under patent law) are run by Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

Most robotic surgery is managed by Intuitive Surgical.

Most genetic testing comes through Illumina.

Logistics

The US government controls all the railways in the USA and has prevented other companies from building them. However, 4 private railroads dominate: Norfolk Southern, CSX Corporation, Berkshire Hathaway, and Union Pacific.

The US government controls all letter mailing in the USA and prevents other companies from shipping small letters.

4 airlines operate most airline flights: Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlines.

Nearly every package is shipped via UPS and Fedex.

The only two significant auto manufacturing companies in the USA are Ford and GM.

Most waste management in the USA is privately contracted to Waste Management.

Quite a lot of restaurant equipment (especially ice cream machines) is sourced by the Taylor Company, owned by Middleby.

Most restaurants in the USA are supplied by Sysco.

Information – Hardware

3 companies own ~80% of mobile telecommunications hardware.

Most government IT infrastructure is approved by the Information Technology Industry Council.

Almost every high-end processor in a personal computer is manufactured by Intel or AMD.

Nearly every graphics card is created by either Nvidia or AMD.

About 80% of the low-end computer chips are created by TSMC.

Information – Software

Alphabet’s platform YouTube hosts most of the internet’s videos.

Microsoft owns over 75% of the operating system market.

Most accounting software for small and mid-size business is Intuit’s Quickbooks.

Most cybersecurity and large-scale enterprise software is owned by Thoma Bravo.

Information – Specific

Credit information is tracked by 3 companies: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax.

  • Equifax also has exclusive control to employment data, and tends to act as a middle organization to HR companies for IRS information.

Insurance-related information is curated exclusively by LexisNexis.

Most of the world’s accounting is performed by 4 firms: Deloitte, EY, PwC, and KPMG

Vizient runs a huge chunk of healthcare management software.

Almost all Canadian movie theaters are run by Cineplex.

Adobe owns a tremendous market on lower-end creative and design software.

Most military intelligence is managed by Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation.

Most financial investment documents are sent by Broadridge Financial Services.

Most cybersecure identity management is run by Ping Identity and ForgeRock.

Most loan origination software (i.e., what banks use to make loans) are run by ICE and Black Knight.

Information – Communication

Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, handles most web searches.

Wired internet in the USA is a government-enforced monopoly by region, with some of the largest operators being Comcast and Verizon.

Meta’s subsidiaries Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram manage most social networking, with China-owned companies picking up a significant chunk of the rest.

News Corp owns most conservative news (e.g., Fox News, New York Post, Wall Street Journal).

The United States Postal Service completely controls both the delivery of anything defined as a “letter” and exclusive control of putting things in mailboxes.

Wireless cellular telephone services in the USA are run almost entirely by AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

The only wired internet in Canada is via 2 possible companies.

Most online book sales are controlled by Amazon.

Most paper book sales are managed by five major companies, including Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.

Most satellite radio comes through Sirius XM Holdings.

Most online advertising is conducted through Alphabet or Meta.

Almost all Korean popular music is managed by four major companies, including Hyme and SM Entertainment.

Economic Activity

3 companies own about 95% of the credit cards.

Visa and Mastercard protect almost all fraud protection of credit cards.

77% of the world’s transaction revenue and 78% of the world’s food flow through SAP software.

Labor

The AFL-CIO politically represents unions for over 12 million workers in the USA.

Military

All US military contracting is performed through 5 companies: Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.

Military rockets in the USA, especially nuclear missiles, are contracted exclusively through Northrop Grumman.

Specific Consumer Products

Most tickets for venues are sold online by TicketMaster.

All major brands of sunglasses and most eyewear (and vision insurance) are sold by Luxottica.

Cheerleading apparel in the USA is dominated by Varsity Brands.

Most football helmets are sold by Schutt and Riddell.

3 companies manufacture all the locks.

All built-in automotive audio equipment in the USA is sold by Harman International, a subsidiary of Samsung.

Most cigarette sales are from Altria.

Most electronic games are run on Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

Many national parks’ fees are collected by Booz Allen.

Garden chemicals in the USA are distributed by 3 main companies.

Communion wafers are almost all manufactured by the Cavanaugh Company.

Everything

Amazon owns a large market share in a wide variety of logistics, retail, and technology sectors.