VOC (Dutch East India Company) was more powerful than most nations at the time. I asked this question on Quora once and got interesting answers [0]. VOC was an incredible enterprise, and there are a few today too, imo, they exist as conglomerates (Samsung, P&G, Amazon), political entities (CIA, CPC), monopolies (Maersk, Google), syndicates (DeBeers [1], NeoAristocrats [2], BigPharma, BigBank, BigSugar, BigOil), and cults (ISIS). These select few have an immeasurable and uncontrolled sway over the globe-- its environment [3], its inhabitants [4], its future [5], its past [6], its present [7].

The greed unrelenting [8], the game rigged [9][10].

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[0] https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-companies-that-are-power...

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you...

[2] https://youtu.be/d_zt3kGW1NM

[3] https://theintercept.com/2015/08/11/dupont-chemistry-decepti...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16208421

[6] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ICN066A

[7] http://money.com/money/3994949/wikipedia-paid-editors/

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-storage_trade

[9] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1593764278

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers

edit: links