The world is suffering from giganticism. Bigger is considered better and biggest best. We are encouraged to look at the big picture and ignore the small details like, for instance, individual human beings. We all must worship at the iron altar of economy of scale. We are led by the nose to equate huge size with ultimate success.
Global reach is glorified as the inevitable future of trade and business. Multinational companies around the world, a more and more dominant influence in all our lives, aim to swallow all the companies they can in order to ascend the league table in size as if that in itself is a good thing.
Companies merge with other companies to become super-companies for the sake of that objective alone. Like children playing games top executives look to see who can build the biggest sandcastle on the beach. In the case of oil, I early on lost track of the game. Exxon swallowed Mobil and British Petroleum swallowed Amoco and then, I think, Arco and Total took
