 The
world finally seems to be waking up to the fact that corporatism -- the
bald and amoral use of power and wealth to control political
decision-making, eliminate competition and increase profits no matter
what the social and environmental cost -- is the scourge of modern
society. Corporatists use globalization as a mechanism for increasing
their power and profits, the consequences of which are mostly negative
to third world countries that misconstrue imperialist expansion as
partnership until it's too late. And corporatists use every political
machination at their disposal to interfere with the market, from
creating oligopolies that gouge consumers to preemptively suing
innovators and entrepreneurs to intimidate them from entering their
markets, to using the IMF and other global economic bodies under their
control to strong-arm poor, struggling countries into giving the
corporatists their land and their resources for a pittance, and, with
the complicity of weak and corruptible local governments, allowing the
corporatists to ravage and pollute their land and waters and
disgracefully exploit local workers. When corporatists press the
governments beholden to them to sign laughably-named 'free' trade
agreements like NAFTA and MAI, they know that these agreements are only
'free' for the corporatists -- for the people and the land they
exploit, these agreements are anything but 'free'. And on top of it
all, taxpayers are robbed by the corporatists' political stooges to pay
monstrous and market-deforming subsidies back to the corporatists,
which are nothing less than kickbacks for political campaign
contributions and theft from taxpayers.
Progressives have no quibble with true capitalism or true, measured
trade liberalization, yet the incoherent and largely corporatist-owned
media have labeled anti-corporatists as anti-capitalists,
anti-free-marketers, anti-trade and, of course, as 'terrorists'. And
the dumbed-down citizens, at least in North America, no longer learn
the lessons of history and economics that could let them see
corporatists and their actions and deceptions for what they truly are
-- ruthlessly and aggressively anti-democracy, pro-oligopoly,
anti-labour, anti-environment, anti-innovation, anti-entrepreneurship,
anti-consumer and anti-citizen.
In the past year, three books have painstakingly laid out the case
against today's corporatism run amok, and each has provided a recipe to
bring this Frankenstein monster back under the control of the people,
whose broad interests corporations were originally designed to serve.
All of them build on the courageous work of David Korten (When Corporations Rule the World), Charles Derber (People Before Profit), Thom Hartmann (Unequal Protection)
and others who have explained both the terrible history and current
unbridled litany of ills of corporatism. But these three new books go
further and tell us specifically how to put the tyrannical genie back
in the bottle.
I've already reviewed Joel Bakan's book (and film) The Corporation.
which explains the psychopathy that has been imbued unwittingly in
corporations by making them amoral, responsible only to their majority
shareholders, and giving them nearly unlimited statutory power and
rights (more than we give individuals, in fact). My review laid out
Bakan's 13-point plan and my seven additional suggestions for ending
corporatism.
Bakan is a Canadian, but his recommendations consider American and
European corporation laws and charters as well. A second, more recent
book, The People's Business, by Lee Drutman and Charlie Cray of Nader's Citizen Works
Corporate Reform Commission, covers much the same territory in a more
leisurely and substantial way, and is focused on the US legal system
for chartering and controlling corporations. The Commission is made up
of of people with astonishing progressive credentials (Herman Daly,
Charles Derber, Hazel Henderson, David Korten, Ted Nace (Gangs of America),
Anita Roddick, Nader himself and a host of others). It's conclusions
and recommendations are virtually identical to Bakan's, though they are
more thoroughly explained and justified but not as succinctly laid out.
Both are specifically aimed at re-engineering corporations to do what
they were historically created to do.
Derber has a new book as well, peculiarly named Regime Change Begins at Home. I say peculiarly because it's not really about Bush or Republicans at all, but rather, as its more apt subtitle Freeing America from Corporate Rule
suggests, about corporatism. Derber's vision for change is a bit more
expansive than Bakan's or Citizen Works', and he lays it out as follows
in the final section of the book:
- Take down the 5 pillars of the third Corporate Regime:
Eliminating corporations' anti-democratic features, ending corporate
interference in politics, restoring health, education and worker
protections to New Deal levels, ending imperialist adventures, and
removing the we're the market, we can do no wrong corporate mystique.
Earlier in the book he's explained that twice before in US history
corporatism has been out of control, and on those occasions, with huge
effort, it was reined in.
- Build a new democracy: Take back control of business,
media, education, the health system, and the political system and
parties from corporations:
- Rewrite corporate charters to ensure corporations serve the public rather than vice versa.
- Strip corporations of constitutional rights that belong only to individual citizens.
- Get corporations out of politics.
- Prohibit corporate involvement in education, health, the media and the military.
- Reform corporate globalization by taxing speculation,
mandating global corporate codes of conduct, protect labour and
environmental standards in trade agreements, offer debt relief to poor
nations, and create new democratically-elected trade and financing
authorities.
- Pass laws to guarantee all Americans food housing, medical care, education, jobs, and a living wage.
- Renounce imperialism and unilateral wars in favour of collective security
- Restore and entrench civil liberties
Derber believes these massive changes are possible, because there is a
history of successfully overcoming corporatist excesses, because it's
in most Americans' self-interest (even if they don't yet realize it),
because the US grassroots culture and tradition supports and demands
it, and because it is inclusive, consistent with both progressive and
conservative values.
So now we have three visions, three re-tellings of the terrible lessons
of history about corporatist excess and how it was overcome, and three
recipes for overcoming it again now. What's interesting is that despite
the differences in style, format, and effusiveness, they're really all
saying the same things: The people must come to understand what
corporatism is, the damage that it is doing, and the successes of
dealing with it in its previous manifestations, and use that knowledge
to reform the legal and political systems to rein in corporatism and
redirect corporations to do what they are good at (raising capital) and
to stop doing all the self-serving, destructive and ultimately
psychopathic things they are doing today.
For the skeptics who think it cannot be done, I recommend you read The People's Business or Regime Change Begins at Home,
specifically the sections that describe the ravages of corporatism in
the past, and the remarkable job the people did, grassroots style, to
end it. Then once you're convinced reform is possible, read The Corporation for the succinct, point-by-point process for doing it.
Image from Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein's film The Take.
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