The year 2021 turned out to be a record-breaking year in the history of mergers and acquisitions. Worldwide, deals worth a total of $5.7 trillion were concluded.

The most high-profile acquisitions included Microsoft’s purchase of video game developer Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion and Broadcom’s acquisition of cloud solutions developer VMware for $61 billion (including debt, which at the time amounted to $8 billion). Elon Musk also made headlines with his $44 billion purchase of Twitter. Additionally, Amgen bought pharmaceutical manufacturer Horizon Therapeutics, ProLogis acquired warehouse operator Duke Realty, and many other smaller deals – ten billion here, twenty there.

What’s the gist? Both the number and volume of these deals are significant. Partly, the amounts are increasing due to inflation, but such deals are generally a sign that even huge companies are confirming the trend of merging and becoming even larger. The consolidation of corporate power into monopolies drives up prices and reduces quality. So why is no one fighting against this?