I'm afraid this is too true

Yet not so true as to signal an impending catastrophe. From IndyMedia:

"We are now entering the age of Empire once again, the age of not just any typical empire, not a Roman imperial project as the Romans themselves benefited by Rome. No, this American-led (militarily) but Western (Northern/Western) commercial empire, and all empires are commercial, is a corporate empire. Corporatism is its fundamental ideology, not religion, not nationalism (though nationalistic rhetoric must be used on the ignorant masses that know little of such things), but a new secular religion with mammon as its god, free markets (read managed competition between only the largest monopoly enterprises) and democracy as its shill, its cover, its myth. Freedom for the Iraqi people, while freedom slips away in America, in Great Britain, in every nation on earth?"

I doubt the power of these Monopoly enterprises, except possibly for the banks which directly benefit as the first recipients increases in the money supply. These organizations turn over and so do the people in them. It's true that corporatists use the language of free markets as cover, as well as using public-private partnerships, managed care, and a phony form of privatization to cover up sweetheart deals for cronies. By which I mean illicit cooperation between politicians and/or bureaucrats which squelches the competitors of a favored business, thereby creating either an open or de facto monopoly.
But we are not yet at the stage of Soviet Russia, Communist China or Baathist Iraq.
We're not even at the stage of present day Europe, and it's Big Labor squelching their economies. Or economy, as it were.

Mammon isn't so much a threat unless you include powerlust in its definition. A great many people in the world today make their living by providing products and services for the comfort of others, beyond food, clothing and shelter. Comforts were provided for poorly in the controlled economies, and the masses lived very poorly and sometimes died.