A brother asked me to simplify the process of corporate domination in an easy explanation to make it easier to understand.
The global power structure is basically made up of a set of tiers. We are at the bottom. Above us, there is government. Above government, there are multinational corporations and financial institutions. Above corporations, there are boards of directors. Above them, there are shareholders.
Every tier beneath the shareholders is mobilized to serve their interests.
Financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and various other “development” banks, supervise governments and lend money to give them leverage over policy.
They demand economic and political policies which prioritize debt repayment above all else; restrict social spending, and force the withdrawal of government from its contract with the population.
They demand the “opening” of domestic markets for multinationals, which means undermining local business, limiting domestic competition, and removing any regulations that might negatively affect profitability –like wage controls and worker safety, labor unions, etc. This is the system known as “neoliberalism.”
Approximately half of the largest economies in the world are corporations, not states. These corporations are controlled by boards of directors, comprising about a dozen people. The boards of directors are appointed by the company shareholders, and each shareholder has one vote per share owned; thus, whichever shareholder owns the most shares, gets the most votes, and has the most influence.
The boards of directors are accountable only to the shareholders, and are legally obligated to ensure them ever-increasing profits.
Major corporate shareholders make up only a tiny percentage of the global population. They are the super-rich, and they control the most powerful non-state actors on the world stage, which in turn control states.
The corporations and the states they control are devoted exclusively to increasing the wealth of the shareholders in the short-term, regardless of the damage this causes to the rest of the population, to the environment, and even to future economic sustainability.