🧩 Main Claim

“Almost everything you own is made by just a few companies.”

This isn’t just a coincidence — it’s a natural outcome of capitalism, where competition leads not to diversity, but to monopoly and the concentration of wealth and power.

🏢 Monopoly Capitalism in Action

🧴 Products

• Most consumer goods are produced by a few corporations.
  • Toothpaste: Colgate-Palmolive and Procter & Gamble
  • Candy: Mars, Mondelez, Hershey
  • Medicine: Pfizer and GSK
  • Caskets: Hillenbrand + 1 other
  • Eyewear: Luxottica
  • Social media: Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp)
  • Retail: Walmart, Amazon
  • And more: Meat, dairy, glass, mattresses, airlines, alcohol — each market is dominated by 2–4 mega-producers

🧠 Capitalism Breeds Consolidation

Competition doesn’t ensure variety. It ends in monopoly.

• As firms compete, winners dominate, acquire losers, and grow.
• Marx called this the centralization of capital — a key feature of capitalism.
• Even small businesses are often:
  • Dependent on large corporations for supply chains
  • Bought out or priced out eventually

💼 Two Class Groups

1. Capitalist class (owners)
   • Own means of production
   • Live off investments: stocks, rents, royalties
2. Working class (everyone else)
   • Work for wages/salaries
   • Own little to no capital

Most “middle class” and small business owners fall into these two broader categories.

📉 The Reality of Surplus Value