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Published June 2015, by Berrett-Koehler Publishers
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?
A searing indictment of an unjust international economic order. —Archbishop Desmond Tutu
The new edition is even more powerful than the original in its articulation of the issues, its stories of the struggle and its compelling call to each and everyone of us to become participants in what I believe to be a sacred trust….creating a world that works for all. —Danny Glover
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Excerpts from Third, 20th Anniversary Edition
Introduction
From Third, 20th Anniversary Edition
Twenty years ago, When Corporations Rule the World sounded a global alarm: The consolidation of power in a global economy ruled by corporations poses a growing threat to markets, democracy, humans, and life itself.
Unfortunately, subsequent events affirm all but extraneous details of the analysis. Corporate power is now more concentrated and operates ever further beyond human control. Its exercise is more reckless. Its political domination is more complete. Its consequences are more devastating. And system collapse is more certain and imminent.
All of this is now abundantly visible. People the world over have mobilized to resist and to build the foundations of a new life-serving economy in which money is a means, not an end.
As the devastation wrought by corporate rule accelerates, time grows every shorter. Replacing the suicide economy we have with the living economy we must bring forth is imperative, and we must accomplish it within a blink of history’s eye.
If we are to move beyond the current system’s deep dysfunction, we must understand its cultural and institutional sources and how they contrast with the design principles by which healthy living communities self-organize. In 1995, the year When Corporations Rule the World launched, the news was filled with reports of eye-popping corporate executive compensation packages, corporate downsizing, and the outsourcing of good-paying jobs to countries distinguished by their low wages and weak labor and environmental protections.
It proved to be a moment of awakening to the depth and implications of an unfolding global corporate takeover with ever more brutal consequences for families, communities, democracy, liberty, Earth, and the livelihood of billions of people.
As the gap between the promise and reality of capitalism grows ever wider, the illusion that lures us into submission grows ever more transparent to reveal the disturbing truth that in submitting to global corporate rule and mindless consumerism, we sacrifice the joys of living and risk humankind’s future. In response, millions of people are acting to reclaim their lives and rebuild their communities. They sow the seeds of an emerging global social movement dedicated to democracy, a living economy, and Living Earth.
Books
Conclusion
From When Corporations Rule the World, Third, 20th Anniversary Edition
Twenty years ago, the title When Corporations Rule the World evoked for many people a question: Do corporations rule the world? Events of the past twenty years have erased all trace of doubt. Indeed, they do. And the consequences are dire.
Our future depends on replacing a life-destroying capitalist suicide economy with a living economy devoted to life’s service. The need is urgent and imperative. The time to debate whether it is necessary or even possible has long passed. We must turn what seems politically impossible into the politically unstoppable. And we must do it in a blink of history’s eye.
In 1995, the seeds of resistance to corporate rule — which captured global attention with the 1999 Seattle WTO protest — were just beginning to germinate. Local-economy initiatives were few and scattered and had yet to coalesce into the global new-economy movement now emerging and gaining momentum by the day.
As the momentum builds, corporatists respond with assurances to the public that if government and special interest citizen advocates will just get out of their way, profit-driven corporations will create jobs for all and heal the environment. These assurances wear increasingly thin as the same corporatists spend billions of dollars on PR campaigns and political lobbying to defeat any initiative that might benefit people and the rest of nature at the expense of corporate freedom and profits.
The ruling institutions of the suicide economy cannot reform themselves from within for a simple reason: Their structure limits human decision making in their service to choices that maximize short-term profits. A system designed to maximize short-term profits free from the expression of moral sensibility drives inevitably toward ever-increasing inequality, environmental destruction, and political corruption. This inherently self-destructive economic system is like a cancer cell. It can destroy itself and the body on which it feeds; it cannot heal or replace itself with a healthy cell.
Even if modest internal reform is possible, marginal reforms can at best slow the damage. Humanity will continue on its suicidal path for so long as we accept the premise that money is wealth and that control of our means of living is best left to a global alliance of “too big to regulate” money-seeking corporate robots devoted to amassing monopoly power to extract unearned profits. . Our human future requires a different system based on authentic values and valid assumptions. We are only beginning to recognize the scope and depth of the implications.
To succeed in the daunting task of securing the future of humankind, we must be clear on the magnitude of the challenge, the forces aligned in our favor, and the critical needs and breakthrough opportunities.
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Overview
In this new edition of his classic book, David Korten illuminates the convergence of ideological, political, and technological forces that have driven an ever-greater concentration of economic and political power in a handful of corporations and financial institutions and left the market system blind to all but its own short-term financial gains. As he vividly documents, the social and environmental consequences of these efforts have been devastating. Human survival depends on a global community-based, life-centered alternative beyond the outmoded ideologies of communism and capitalism. Korten lays out specific steps to achieve it.
In the new introduction and conclusion, and the updated prologue and epilogue, Korten shares insights from his personal experience as a participant in the growing new economy movement; reviews the implications of relevant events since 1995—including the global democracy movement, 9/11, the war on terror, and the financial crash of 2008—explores why the institutions of what he calls a suicide economy resolutely resist even modest reform; and outlines high-leverage opportunities for breakthrough change.
September 11th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized
