When Corporations Rule the World

by David C. Korten Narrated by Kevin Pierce

Overview

Our Choice: Democracy or Corporate Rule

A handful of corporations and financial institutions command an ever-greater concentration of economic and political power in an assault against markets, democracy, and life. It's a “suicide economy,” says David Korten, that destroys the very foundations of its own existence.

The bestselling 1995 edition of When Corporations Rule the World helped launch a global resistance against corporate domination. In this twentieth-anniversary edition, Korten shares insights from his personal experience as a participant in the growing movement for a New Economy. A new introduction documents the further concentration of wealth and corporate power since 1995 and explores why our institutions resolutely resist even modest reform. A new conclusion chapter outlines high-leverage opportunities for breakthrough change.

Editorial Reviews

Cindy Patuszynski

Vivid imagery and original ideas make The Post-Corporate World an interesting and thought-provoking perspective of Korten's view of global society.
— ForeWord Magazine

Andrea Martin

...[W[ith thrilling clarity, discusses practical ways to create a just, sustainable and compassionate society. —Utne Reader

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

"In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy and the market economy." So begins The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism, the latest salvo from David C. Korten (When Corporations Rule the World). In four sections of three or four chapters each, Korten lays out how it happened and what we can do about it, using model communities that have already begun to "treat money as a facilitator, not the purpose, of our economic lives."

Library Journal

Korten (Getting to the Twenty-First Century, Kumarian Pr., 1990) brings impressive credentials to the task of blaming large international corporations for many of the social and environmental problems confronting people all over the world. Using numerous well-researched examples, Korten argues that not only do today's corporations exploit labor and the environment, but governments (particularly the U.S. government), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, aid and abet this exploitation through policies that favor capitalists over workers and small business. Although Korten speaks from an obviously liberal position, in an era when conservative political voices declare an unswerving faith in the benefits of unfettered free markets, a voice from the opposition offers a welcome balance. Recommended for public and academic libraries.-Andrea C. Dragon, Coll. of St. Elizabeth, Convent Station, N.J.

Booknews

While protestors at the WTO meetings in Seattle and at similar meetings of the global financial institutions have been derided as ill-informed troublemakers by the majority of the press, Korten (former advisor to the Ford Foundation and U.S. Agency for International Development) argues that their concerns about increasingly centralized corporate power are essentially right. He outlines the evolution of corporate power over the economy and governance worldwide, while acknowledging the severe depredations it causes to millions around the world. After looking at many facets of the problem in financial systems, flawed economic analyses, declining democratic institutions, and other aspects of growing corporate power, he offers some solutions. He grounds his alternative in a theory he calls the "Ecological Revolution" that would attempt to localize economies, while globalizing cooperation among communities. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Kirkus Reviews

In the '80s, capitalism defeated communism. Now it has defeated democracy, we are informed by Korten (When Corporations Rule the World). Capitalism is inimical to life, he declares, and he thinks, naturally enough, that life is better. The author, a former Harvard Business School teacher, depicts the doleful condition on our sad little planet. He objects to the wayward thinking of proponents of what he calls a "dead universe" governed by inhumanly impersonal corporations. Midas was wrong. Life and money do not mix. Humanity, as a functioning organism, can make a better choice. It can reject the power of international business, bent on amassing hegemony and cash at any cost. Corporations, to put it baldly, are soul destroying and inherently evil. They are merging and metastasizing worldwide. The unfortunate current primacy of cash returns to shareholders bodes ill. Corporations destroy natural assets and human institutions and exploit workers—this is the author's angry preachment. (The reader must conclude that the term "corporation" is simple synecdoche, standing in for Mammon as Capitalist). Korten is preaching a kind of Zen: We must learn the lessons of life's ancient wisdom and stop the foolishness now. Without a shift to ethical and mindful markets and the local rooting of capital, we are doomed, saith Korten. Reject NAFTA, the WTO, and the IMF as ultimately destructive forces. Corporations should not, as is presently the case, be accorded the status of personhood or be recipients of governmental largess. Economic democracy must be advanced, but can the change happen? The author thinks so, pointing to signs of postmodern populism and grassroots humanitarianism. Staytuned. Less a full-scale program for action than a life-affirming pep talk. An amalgam of physics, biology, and politics, with a dollop of philosophy, this manifesto is as troublesome as any zealot's call for morality.

From the Publisher

This is a ‘must-read’ book—a searing indictment of an unjust international economic order, not by a wild-eyed idealistic left-winger, but by a sober scion of the establishment with impeccable credentials. It left me devastated but also very hopeful. Something can be done to create a more just economic order.”
—Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate

“Anyone serious about the systemic crisis we now face ought to read this updated version today. Korten captures the devastating and increasingly threatening dynamics of the corporate-dominated global system and has offered a vibrant, well-written, and important strategy for moving us beyond its destructive economic, social, and ecological logic.”
—Gar Alperovitz, author of What Then Must We Do?

“If every corporate leader who believes implicitly that consumerism is the path to happiness (and that rampant development is the road to global prosperity) were to read When Corporations Rule the World with an open mind, that world just might have a chance of becoming a better place for us all.”
—Toronto Globe and Mail

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171710576
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	06/29/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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