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A useful comparison from 5 minutes of googling: In 2017, the top 20 car companies produced 76m vehicles [1]. There "may be as many as 2000 car companies global
by dash2 6y ago
A useful comparison from 5 minutes of googling:
In 2017, the top 20 car companies produced 76m vehicles [1]. There "may be as many as 2000 car companies globally".[2] This page (admittedly it seems to have been "hacked by Javanese team") says total vehicle production was about 96m.[3]
So, 1% of motor companies produce 80% of the world's cars.
Is there a reason one statistic should alarm us more than the other? Is food production different from motor car production? Should we think of farms as factories?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manufacturers_by_motor_vehicle_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manufacturers_by_motor...
[2] https://www.topspeed.com/cars/makes/ https://www.topspeed.com/cars/makes/
[3] http://www.oica.net/category/production-statistics/2017-statistics/ http://www.oica.net/category/production-statistics/2017-stat...
- pietrovismara 6y agoI'd say that food production is way more critical. Centralization of production at this levels could make the whole system much more fragile, and we depend more (and with more immediacy) on food than on private transportation. Plus I don't agree with the idea that food should be treated as a commodity.
- sfkdjf9j3j 6y agoThe headline doesn't really tell the full story in this case. The article describes increasing concentration of control of farm land via certain financial products (and direct ownership). It's more of a collection of quotes than an article I suppose but it touches on the effects of this on economic inequality, agricultural monoculture, land stewardship concerns, that sort of thing.
- MichaelApproved 6y agoIt’s important to prevent monopolies in any industry but there are degrees of importance. The food supply chain is more important than the automotive supply chain.