Who controls the world?

A good question. Well, it's complex. Literally.

 ... a richer, data-driven understanding of the people and interactions that control our global economy. He does this not to push an ideology -- but with the hopes of making the world a better place

In the talk, James Glattfelder tells us about the application of complexity analysis maths to financial systems in particular ownership and control.

This approach has been very successfully applied to many complex systems in physics, biology, computer science, the social sciences, but what about economics? Where are economic networks? This is a surprising and prominent gap in the literature. ... it turns out that the 737 top shareholders have the potential to collectively control 80 percent of the TNCs' value. Now remember, we started out with 600,000 nodes, so these 737 top players make up a bit more than 0.1 percent. They're mostly financial institutions in the U.S. and the U.K. And it gets even more extreme. There are 146 top players in the core, and they together have the potential to collectively control 40 percent of the TNCs' value.
James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world? | Video on TED.com