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Title: When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten ISBN: 1-887208-04-6 Publisher: Kumarian Press Pub. Date: 10 May, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.32 (47 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: It's not When, they do. Good overview of the concerns.
Comment: The fact that transnational corporations and their agendas have come to dominate cultural, political, and economic life on a global scale can hardly be disputed. These powerful corporations have used national governments and government-created international bodies to create a legislative and institutional regime that accedes to and actively promotes and implements a "free-market" ideology. This book is largely concerned with detailing the tremendous costs to the political, economic, and social fabric of the entire global community as corporations have become ever more capable under this ideological regime in extracting wealth and generating huge profits on a worldwide basis. The author sees poverty, social and political disintegration, and environmental degradation as the main consequences of this global corporate ascendance.
The ability of corporations to penetrate the political and cultural sectors of our society is hardly a late twentieth century phenomenon. Despite the founders' efforts to contain corporations by explicit and revocable state charters, emerging industrialists in the post-Civil War era became powerful enough to sway legislators and the judiciary to act in their behalf. Not only did corporations generally gain rights to perpetuity, but the Supreme Court declared corporations to be legal persons entitled to the same rights as ordinary citizens, in addition to limited liability. By the late 1920s capitalism had largely emerged triumphant over worker and community interests. Consumerism was instilled as the only legitimate avenue for realizing individualized "freedom."
According to the author, a form of democratic pluralism existed among the civil, governmental, and market sectors of society in the post-WWII era, but any such sectorial accommodation was mostly an aberration that came about only because of the necessity to solve the twin crises of the Great Depression (caused by corporate-led economic excess) and WWII. Any social accord that may have existed was shredded as corporations, backed by the Reagan administration, renewed their assault on the working class and relentlessly pursued self-interested global strategies. Over the last two decades, middle-class jobs have been lost, median pay has stagnated, and austerity has been imposed on the less fortunate as a profound upward redistribution of wealth and income has occurred.
Globally, the structural adjustment measures forced upon developing nations by the World Bank and the IMF to qualify for loans, ripped the fabric of those societies and have actually increased indebtedness to First World bankers. Trade agreements and administrative bodies, such as the NAFTA and the WTO, are designed to eliminate local restrictions on investments by international firms and barriers to the free movement of goods between nations. The freedom for capital to move freely among nations has also fueled rampant financial speculation unrelated to productive investment. Unconscionably, American taxpayers have been forced to bailout those engaged in extracting wealth from the developing world.
Free market ideology is used to justify the gutting of the social and legal structures of nations. But it is a disingenuous view. Free market activities posited by Adam Smith involve local, individual economic actors, none of whom have the power to control the marketplace. Unregulated market activities by huge economic entities can result in market coercion. For example, monopolistic firms can externalize costs, that is, they are powerful enough to force societies to pay for the social and environmental side-effects of their activities. For example, labor and environmental regulations are often ignored with impunity with society picking up the pieces.
The impact of corporations acting as legal persons cannot be overemphasized. Corporations overwhelm actual citizen political participation and free speech by the extent and intensity of their political lobbying and media controlling efforts. Corporations and the rich, in a form of legalized bribery, basically fund political campaigns. They also heavily sway public opinion through public relations front organizations, conservative think-tanks, and the control of the major media. The dependency of the media on advertising dollars virtually guarantees presentation of views that are compatible with corporate interests, not to mention the fact that the huge media empires are themselves transnational corporations with no interest in harming broader corporate interests.
As the author indicates, corporations have largely "colonized" the common culture. Television is the main media outlet for the inculcation of business-friendly values, which emphasizes the avid pursuit of consumption. Even political activity has become mostly the marketing of pleasing candidates. The message is incessantly and subtly delivered that a free market system is self running and stabilizing and needs little or no political interference. Of course, the reality is far different. Corporations have infiltrated government at all levels with the sole purpose of ensuring that governments take an active role in supporting the corporate agenda, or pro-business regulation. In addition, governments are left to deal with the unprofitable aspects of society or side-effects of corporate actions. The net effect is a democracy hardly worthy of the name.
The author's principal approach to this regime of corporate hegemony is to call for a rollback to self-sustaining local communities. Such recommended measures as land reform (breaking up corporate farms) and urban agriculture seem almost quaint. The author confuses his message of a return to pre-consumption-dominated life by calling for high tech solutions, such as video-phones, to link local communities. Where does he think high tech products come from other than corporate development labs? A hard-hitting analysis seems to be getting waylaid by some fuzzy spirituality.
But the most practical approach is contained in the book. Free market propaganda has to be countered and a regime of regulating big business through governmental controls must be instituted. Is there any hope for this? The Seattle protest and other citizen demonstrations show that the democracy-killing initiatives of the WTO have not gone unnoticed. In addition, it has been claimed that 25 percent of the population belongs to a cultural grouping called "Cultural Creatives," who can be expected to oppose insensitive corporate agendas. And the author takes no note of minority interests that are generally opposed to the conservative business agenda. The author wants to see a cultural transformation, but a heightened awareness of class will be needed to combat the class warfare being perpetrated on the non-elites of the world.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent Primer on Dangers of Transnational Influences!
Comment: It should come as no surprise to well-read students of the late 20th century that the goals, ethos, and practices of transnational business corporations are oblivious and often inimical to the needs of specific cultures and particular nations. But what is even more alarming is the extent to which these corporations persist in behaving as though the consequences of their activities and practices are either accidental or unavoidable. Thus, "When Corporations Rule the World" helps to inform, enlighten and prepare us as to what mischief these relatively new and potentially revolutionary forms of organizations are doing to societies, cultures, and the environment.
They act in their own best interests, and the way in which they perceive these interests is narrow, self-serving, and quite shortsighted. The fact is that transnational corporations have successfully trumped ordinary citizens in terms of their power, influence, and ability to determine the laws, regulations, and social conditions under which they operate in any particular polity, so that even in the so-called social democracies such organizations seem able to act with near absolute impunity. As a result, their actions are increasingly at odds with those of the society itself, and increasingly ordinary citizens are coming to recognize that the political lobbies created by such organizations have captured the strings of power for their own uses. As H. L Mencken said almost eighty years ago in reference to the U. S Congress, "We have the best Congress money can buy". Some things never seem to change.
Author Korten lays out a virtual panorama of ways in which such transnational corporations rule, and shows how the benefits of such practices seem to be progressively narrowing the basis of the so-called "good-life" to an ever-decreasing portion of the citizens of post-industrial society. In this sense, Korten does a handy job of deftly highlighting the ways in which the world's many environmental and social problems are interconnected and related. Moreover, he contends, the trend of this unhealthy and undemocratic combination of bad habits, narrowly focused corporate values, and profligate ideologies combine to produce the likelihood of a very negative future. Yet, as Korten is quick to point out, it is not all necessarily bleak and unchangeable. He draws out scenarios in which a more sustainable future that would be more palatable to everyone within the modern post-industrial society, including the most conservative business elements among us.
Yet, even as he attempts to paint a more positive possibility for the future, he is left ruminating over the many ways in which transnational corporations continue to run amok, beyond the reach of national laws or meaningful regulation, motivated more by greed and short-term profit orientations than by any meaningful ties to a broader ethos which includes elements of social responsibility or cultural appreciation. Today, as we see the ways in which the post-industrial societies have surrendered to the leitmotif of the transnational corporations, in a world run increasingly for the convenience and interest of large commercial business interests, it is difficult to see how the kinds of happier times he hopes for can come to pass. This is an excellent primer for anyone interested in learning more about the scope of transnational corporations and the many ways in which they have encroached on the rights, prerogatives, and benefits of citizens in particular societies such as our own, and the dangers they pose for our continuing liberties and well being. Enjoy!
Rating: 5
Summary: Best "buyer beware" information since Ralph Nader
Comment: The book dissects the gritty and often dire consequences of consumer patterns, economic and legal policies, and gives insights on how to "leave the camp ground cleaner than when we found it."
It explains why we need to alter our current modus operandi because currently, we are heading towards disaster as in famines, the AIDS epidemic, war, environmental impasse (meaning that drinking tap water and eating any type of food could be increasingly toxic because more pesticides and chemicals are contained in the foods as we have taxed our earth in a way that it can barely produce for us).
I often hear how mass globalism can destroy local culture-like why a Wal-Mart can drastically impact a local economy. It is extremely informative, well researched-and is a call to action!
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Title: The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism by David C. Korten ISBN: 1887208038 Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Pub Pub. Date: 30 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Case Against the Global Economy: And for a Turn Toward the Local by Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith ISBN: 0871568659 Publisher: Sierra Club Books Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Alternatives to Economic Globalization by John Cavanagh, Jerry Mander, Sarah Anderson, Debi Barker, Maude Barlow, Walden Bello, Robin Broad, Tony Clarke, Edward Goldsmith, Randy Hayes ISBN: 1576752046 Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Pub Pub. Date: 15 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy by Marjorie Kelly ISBN: 1576751252 Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Pub Pub. Date: 15 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization and High-Finance Fraudsters by Greg Palast ISBN: 0452283914 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 25 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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