""Karl Marx pointed out that free market economics is self defeating, and the rise of multinationals, merging and defeating each other will lead to the same totalitarian state that socialism would give, but without the inferred equity.""

Small but (IMHO) vital correction: without the inferred, but never actually realised, equity.

Which totally destroys Marx's concept of the advantage of communism to any but the privileged ruling class.

No gain to be had, so why change?

It is also important to realise that the corporatism rife in the West, and rapidly growing in the East, is about as far from free market economy as it is possible to get.

There is no place on this planet, of any significance, which has a genuine free market economy, and there is no practical difference to the man in the street between corporate control and state control.

What is needed is to break down these massive multinationals into individual, competing entities, thereby removing the power of monopoly.

We once had a Monopolies Commission (only one?) which came down like a ton of sh..you know what upon companies which controlled too high a percentage of the market and barred any merger or buyout which led to that situation.

We have to remember that the small business is also Capitalist in nature and before most of them were squeezed out of business, they acted as a brake on the greed of the cartels.

Don T.