During the recent nineteen-year period from 1950 to 1969, corporate profits, both before and after taxes, formed a shrinking proportion of the nation… - Neil H. Jacoby

The 4,400 business corporations that disappeared by merger during 1968 were a small number compared with the 12,000 that disappeared by failure, or the 207,000 new corporations that were formed. Even the $43 billion in securities exchanged in mergers that year were only 3.3 percent of the market value of corporate securities.

It is widely believed that big business firms collectively own the preponderance of America’s wealth and are steadily expanding their share. The facts show the contrary. Corporate business owns about 28 percent of the tangible wealth of the United States, and its share has not changed much during the past fifty years. The bulk of the nation’s tangible wealth is held by the household and government sectors of the economy and is not employed in profit-seeking enterprise, corporate or noncorporate. …If the character of a society were to be designated by its major wealth-holding institution, the United States could more appropriately be described as a ‘household state’ than a ‘corporate state’.

How did it come about that only a few international oil companies held concessions to all of this region Middle East at the end of World War II? The answer lies in the bitter struggle of the United States government to gain an entrance for its nationals into the British-dominated Middle East, a struggle which very significantly shaped the structure of the industry as it emerged from World War II.