I’m not familiar with the corporate landscape in Germany, but the US and Canada also have anti-trust law and competition agencies whose purpose is to prevent consolidation. Why hasn’t that prevented it?
How does an oligarchy come into existence in a capitalist democracy that didn’t start with a monarchy? Can you see a relationship between the process of consolidation and the creation of this oligarchy, where the oligarchs are the people who accumulated wealth through this process, gradually using this wealth to capture the regulators, leading to more consolidation, more wealth and greater capture, and repeat? We didn’t wake up one day with an oligarchy that wasn’t there yesterday. It’s not like all of the current oligarchs can be traced back to an oligarchic family from the past.
I wouldn’t call whatever the US has or had real Democracy to begin with. You only have two viable parties and it’s so easy to abuse. Just look at the mess your electoral college ans gerrymandering is.
I’m not fully happy with the German system because we for example can’t directly elect our chancellor and president but there at least five parties who jump the 5% hurdle to enter the Bundestag and ten or so others you can directly vote for.
And that’s why you have laws and agencies to prevent that like the German Bundeskartellamt.
I’m not familiar with the corporate landscape in Germany, but the US and Canada also have anti-trust law and competition agencies whose purpose is to prevent consolidation. Why hasn’t that prevented it?
Because you have an oligarchy
How does an oligarchy come into existence in a capitalist democracy that didn’t start with a monarchy? Can you see a relationship between the process of consolidation and the creation of this oligarchy, where the oligarchs are the people who accumulated wealth through this process, gradually using this wealth to capture the regulators, leading to more consolidation, more wealth and greater capture, and repeat? We didn’t wake up one day with an oligarchy that wasn’t there yesterday. It’s not like all of the current oligarchs can be traced back to an oligarchic family from the past.
I wouldn’t call whatever the US has or had real Democracy to begin with. You only have two viable parties and it’s so easy to abuse. Just look at the mess your electoral college ans gerrymandering is.
I’m not fully happy with the German system because we for example can’t directly elect our chancellor and president but there at least five parties who jump the 5% hurdle to enter the Bundestag and ten or so others you can directly vote for.
Because nobody enforces the law. There are so many mega corpos that needs to be broken up, but it doesn’t happen.