Additional mergers, which are high on the Korean government's agenda, will further destroy entire categories of jobs. In South Korea, and elsewhere around the world, the race is on between transnational corporations to see who can create the largest monopoly and thus most effectively control global market prices. Merger mania has in recent years demonstrated that market deregulation can make or break corporations. Paying the price for such unbridled liberalisation, workers worldwide are being laid off by the hundreds of thousands. Regardless of this casualty figure, deregulation of the market remains on the agenda.
Statistics confirm the trend.
In the scramble to reach the top, the law of the jungle prevails. As recently as 1998, only 200 transnationals controlled the worldwide production of all goods and services, including manufacturing, banking, wholesale and retail trade, agricultural production and distribution, and the entire gamut of both legal and illegal financial services. Since 1998, the 200 have regrouped through fresh mergers into even more formidable monopolies. Gobbling up the competition in a single mouthful ultimately guarantees their success. However, over and above the profit motive, corporate survival has become contingent on carving out market monopoly niches.