Corporation Nation
Jay Fenello
FYI:
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Corporation Nation
Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2000 19:35:06 -0500
From: enrique <ezef...@mindspring.com>
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excerpted from the book:
Corporate Predators
by Russel Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Common Courage Press, 1999
Exxon merges with Mobil. Citicorp marries Travelers. Daimler Benz gobbles
up Chrysler. BankAmerica takes over NationsBank. WorldCom eats MCI.
Corporations are getting bigger and bigger, and their influence over our
lives continues to grow. America is in an era of corporate ascendancy, the
likes of which we haven't seen since the Gilded Age.
Charles Derber, a professor of sociology at Boston College, believes that,
contrary to the lessons our civics teacher taught us, it is undemocratic
corporations, not governments, that are dominating and controlling society.
In his most recent book, Corporation Nation (St. Martin's Press, 1998),
Derber argues that the consequence of the growing power of giant corporate
multinationals is increased disparity in wealth, rampant downsizing and
million dollar CEOs making billion dollar decisions with little regard for
the average American.
A couple of years ago, Derber wrote The Wilding of America (St. Martin's
Press, 1996), in which he argued that the American Dream had transmuted
into a semi-criminal semi-violent virus that is afflicting large parts of
the elites of the country.
That book tried to call attention to the extent to which violent behavior
could be understood as a product of over-socialization.
"The problem was not that they had been underexposed to American values,
but that they could not buffer themselves from those values," Derber told
us. "They had lost the ability to constrain any kind of anti-social
behavior-because of obsessions with success-the American Dream."
By anti-social behavior, Derber means the epitome of Reaganism-"a kind of
warping of the more healthy forms of individualism in our culture into a
hyper-individualism in which people asserted their own interests without
regard to its impact on others."
At the time, Derber was interviewed on a Gerald show about paid
assassins-people who killed for money.
"It was scary to be around young people who confessed to killing for
relatively small amounts of money-a few thousand dollars," Derber said.
"They said things like-'you have to understand, this is just a business,
everybody has to make money.' I pointed out on the show that this was the
language that business usually uses."
At the same time, Newsweek ran a cover story titled "Corporate Killers." On
the cover, Newsweek ran the mug shots of four CEOs who had downsized in
profitable periods and upped their own salaries.
"These corporate executives tended to use the same language as the paid
assassins on the Geraldo show, 'I feel fine about this because I'm just
doing what the market requires,' " Derber explains. "I develop an analogy
between paid assassins on the street and those in the suites. In the most
general sense, these corporate executives are paid hitmen who use very much
the same language and rationalization. I argue that corporations are
exemplifying a form of anti-social behavior which is undermining a great
deal of the social fabric and civilized values that we would hope to sustain."
With the hitmen parallel fresh in his mind, Derber began writing
Corporation Nation. In it, Derber points to the parallels between today and
the age of the robber barons 100 years ago- the wave of corporate mergers,
the widening gulf between rich and poor (Bill Gates' net worth-well over
$50 billion-is more than that of the bottom 100 million Americans), the
enormous influence of corporations over democratic institutions, both major
parties bought off by big business, and a Democratic President closely
aligned with big business (Grover Cleveland then, Bill Clinton today).
One big difference between then and now: back then, a real grassroots
populist movement rose up to challenge corporate power, though it did not
succeed in attaining its core goals.
Today, while there are many isolated movements challenging individual
corporate crimes, there is no mass-movement attacking the corporation as
the cause of the wealth disparity, destruction of the environment and all
the many other corporate driven ills afflicting society.
Derber, a professor of sociology at Boston College, says that when he asks
his students, "Have you ever thought about the question of whether
corporations in general have too much power," they uniformly say they have
never had that question raised.
Derber says that one good way to again build a populist movement to attack
corporate power is to study the language and tactics of the populists of
100 years ago. He has, and he makes clear in his book that the original
conception of the corporation was one of a public-not private-entity.
We the people created the corporation to build roads and bridges and
deliver the goods. If the corporation didn't do as we said, we yanked their
charter.
The corporate lawyers quickly got their hands around that idea, smashed it,
and replaced it with the current conception of the corporation: a private
person under the law, with the rights and privileges of any other living
and breathing citizen.
Thus, a quick transformation from "we decide" to "they decide."
Derber is a bit too modest to say it, so we will: perhaps the best way to
rebuild a strong, vibrant and populist movement is to get this book into
the hands of people who care about democracy. The corporations have us on
the run, but we should pause for a moment or two, find a quiet place, and
read this book.
Respectfully,
Jay Fenello,
New Media Relations
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http://www.fenello.com 770-392-9480
Aligning with Purpose(sm) ... for a Better World
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