Out of 100 biggest global entities, 44 are companies... another drive for 'shared value'

In a recent video post about 'shared value', tech company Hewlett Packard claimed that out of 100 largest economies, 51 were companies. I got intrigued by the fact and did some cross-check, based on the latest Forbes Top 500 list and IMF data:

So in fact there's only 44 companies in the list, but HP's point is still very valid: most companies have become so big (or: economically important) that they simply cannot turn their back on their social responsibilities. It's one more drive for the trend towards Market States, where businesses will increasingly take over responsibilities from the public sector (a second one would be for their own benefit, as I mentioned in a previous blog post).

Will this trend amplify in the future? Well, you could argue that from the top 10 biggest companies, 5 are petroleum companies. What will happen to them when we reach 'peak oil' somewhere in the next 20 years? The same could be said about countries like Norway or Qatar, where oil contributes for a big part to the GDP...