I'm designing a story where I'm taking current situations and trends such as market and cultural globalization, massive state debt and constant corporate mergers to a semi-dystopian extreme in order to build a fictional world where:
Newly created private companies almost automatically become part of one of four conglomerates. These four complement one another in different ways, and there is a fragile equilibrium where this status quo benefits all of them financially. Each of these multinational corporations have various enterprises related to basically every target audience (young, old, rebellious, conservative, etc.) in basically all areas (consumer goods, industry, media, etc.). If the newly created company has been created with the intention of being independent and tries to avoid being merged into one of the bigger fishes, for instance, all competition can band together (or maybe just one of them will need to act) to lower prices even into a loss, which they can allow temporarily as they're part of something bigger, so that the new actor's market share and its profits are negligible or at a loss, and the debt will require them to accept being bought off (this also will bring all of the infrastructure into the hands of the buying conglomerate).
Government is libertarian, so there are not anti-trust regulations to avoid these dirty tricks. In fact, many of the government members have work experience and close contacts in the higher ups in one or various conglomerates (and they will presumably go back to one of them after their "public service" office terms are over), so the "state" has become a market tool progressively, without need of anything as overt, suspicious or obvious as a coup. Political options such as the traditional left or the far-right have dissipated, given that there's not enough media traction for them and, when they do appear on the news and talk shows, it is to be demonized and ridiculed.
Society elects these representatives because rampant consumerism has ended up ended up replacing ideology and nationalism as a point of pride; as in, people don't feel pride for a country, they feel closer to cultural products and notable people of the four corporations. The lynchpin of conservative traditional family values has, say, become a certain TV show focused on Aesop's and pat morality, while a center of post-modern cynicism is a satirical TV show... maybe aired in two different channels but part of the same conglomerate. Whatever citizen outrage exists is fed back into the capitalist machine. Of course, there exist some small grassroots movements, but they don't get much traction outside of performances, and even some of its members (the ones whose antics get the most attention) end up being bought off by the media in order to participate on it (see the ending of Black Mirror's 15 Million Merits for reference).
So, apart from asking you to find holes in my worldbuilding (please do), here is my main question:
Is there any relatively plausible way to "end up" like this? I want to explore the progression from the present to that situation somehow in the story... Which are some possible, crucial events that could have shape the society I explained?
Newly created private companies almost automatically become part of one of four conglomerates.
Why go to the trouble of making a new company then? If you're thinking the entrepreneurs can simply sell out, why would the oligarchy buy them out when they can simply squeeze the new enterprise out of the market and take over the business $\endgroup$