Extrapolating

from this little video—

It comes from a new data animation channel. I don’t know who (or what AI) made it, what they used for data sources, or even what the basis of the rankings is—market cap? revenue? (A quick search and those seem to be the two main metrics for such rankings.) Like so much out there on the internet, it’s mum, fait-accompli data LARPing as fact—take it or leave it, believe it or not.

But even withholding final credence, it’s surprising and revealing. No surprise that banks, tech, pharma, and energy tower over even the towers, or that big capital is as international as it is. What surprised me (it shouldn’t) was the wealth of the consumer retail and entertainment sectors. Amazon and even Walmart and Costco I get, but L’Oreal, a French beauty products company, is worth as much as Adobe. Airbnb is worth almost as much as Airbus. Pepsico, Coca-Cola, the mislabeled “McDoland’s,” and Netflix are worth more than any of those. Car makers span the range from Toyota at $237 billion to Tesla, valued at over a trillion.

Of course, mass consumption is a major driver of the economy. But it is also a major diverter and pacifier of the public. Consumption, the business of the middle echelons of the wealthiest companies, acts as a thick layer of insulation for the top—the fat around America’s belly. In a way it’s a kind of propaganda, and in a way a kind of mass medication—sedative and stimulant. It certainly provides the necessities of life—for those who can afford them—but it goes way, way beyond that into a dizzying profusion of options and attractions that call out to those who can’t afford them more loudly than to those who can. What was once a pacifier has become an aggravator. Thus the locked cases for laundry detergent at CVS and the looting that breaks out after disasters. Thus the record credit-card debt.

I was in Romania toward the crack-up of communism when people stood in line for hours for a little bit of meat or a few rolls of harsh Chinese toilet paper. Somewhere in between these two extremes is a generously broad swath of “enough.” But it is underpopulated. We are a country more and more starkly divided between the few with too many options and the many with too few. Take a look at the comments underneath this video. They overflow with populist rage.