Only ten states have “within their border property and wealth” of greater value than the largest corporation in the United States. [Footnote - David Lynch: The Concentration of Economic Power (New York: Columbia University Press; 1947), p. 113.]  The two largest corporations, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, are wealthier than any one of thirty-eight states in the United States.  To describe the issue more graphically: the Pennsylvania Railroad is richer than the state of Kansas; the Chase National Bank than the state of Minnesota; the United States Steel Corporation than West Virginia; Genteral Motors than Tennessee; Cities Service Company than the state of Colorado; North American Company than South Dakota or Florida.  In fact, each of eighteen states are poorer than any one of the smallest of the thirty billion-dollar corporations existing before the war.

The corporations control 100 per cent of the production of gas and electric power, 96 per cent of mining, 92 per cent of manufacturing, 89 per cent of transportation, and 84 per cent of finance.  How concentrated the economy has become is evidenced by the fact that 1 per cent of the employers in the United States hire 48 per cent of the workers, and that 5 per cent give employment to 70 per cent of those working for wages.

While there were some 400,000 corporations in the United States in 1940, less than 1 per cent of these held 52 per cent of all the corporate assets.  This concentration of wealth is reflected in production: three companies produce 100 per cent of the aluminum; three companies, 86 per cent of the automobiles; three companies, 90 per cent of tin cans; three companies, 80 per cent of cigarettes; four companies, 100 per cent of corn binders; two companies, 95 per cent of plate glass; two companies, 90 per cent of safety glass.

(Tannenbaum, The True Society. Pages 110-111)