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There's lots more to this NY Times article, but here are the highlights. The article is definitely worth reading. One question: How does this affect the tendency for the rate of profit to fall? It seems to me that it would mitigate it, no? "Apple on Thursday reached a milestone that these icons of capitalism never dreamed of: a market value of more than <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/02/technology/apple-trillion-market-cap.html>$1 trillion <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/02/technology/apple-trillion-market-cap.html> .... "Today, a smaller cluster of American companies commands a larger share of total corporate profits than since at least the 1970s.... "In 1975, 109 companies collected half of the profits produced by all publicly traded companies. Today, those winnings are captured by just 30 companies.... "The difference between how much it costs American companies to make their products and how much they sell those products for — a metric of the power that companies possess in their markets — is at its highest level since at least 1950.... "Apple and Google combined now provide the software for 99 percent of all smartphones. Facebook and Google take 59 cents of every dollar spent on online advertising in the United States. Amazon exerts utter dominance over online shopping and is getting bigger, fast, in areas like streaming of music and videos.... "Today, almost half of all the assets in the American financial system are controlled by five banks. In the late 1990s, the top five banks controlled a little more than one-fifth of the market. Over the past decade, six of the largest United States airlines merged into three. Four companies now control 98 percent of the American wireless market, and that number could fall to three if T-Mobile and Sprint are allowed to merge.... "And in the labor market, scholars have linked <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/business/economy/labor-share-economic-output.html> corporate consolidation to rising income inequality and the declining share of the nation’s wealth <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/business/economy/wages-workers-profits.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fpatricia-cohen&action=click&contentCollection=undefined®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection> that goes to workers. The so-called labor share of the economy has been declining in the United States and other rich countries since the 1990s, coinciding with the trend toward corporate concentration. And that decline has been most pronounced in industries undergoing the greatest consolidation." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/business/apple-trillion.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news -- *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black Jacobins" by C. L. R. James Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
