Excerpt from the Introduction to
When Corporations Rule the World
2nd Edition
by David C. Korten
Debates,
dialogues, and street protests addressing the issues of corporate globalization
have brought into sharp focus a deepening struggle grounded in two sharply
divergent world views. On one side are the forces of corporate globalization
advanced by an alliance between the world's largest corporations and most
powerful governments. This alliance is backed by the power of money, and its
defining project is to integrate the world's national economies into a single,
borderless global economy in which the world's mega-corporations are free to
move goods and money anywhere in the world that affords an opportunity for
profit, without governmental interference. In the name of increased efficiency
the alliance seeks to privatize public services and assets and strengthen
safeguards for investors and private property. In the eyes of its proponents,
corporate globalization is the result of inevitable and irreversible historical
forces driving a powerful engine of technological innovation and economic growth
that is strengthening human freedom, spreading democracy, and creating the
wealth needed to end poverty and save the environment.
On the other side are the forces of a newly emerging global
movement advanced by a planetary citizen alliance of civil society
organizations. This alliance is bringing together the most important social
movements of our time in common cause, is self-organizing, depends largely on
voluntary social energy, and is driven by a deep value commitment to democracy,
community, equity, and the web of planetary life. It is a movement of a million
leaders, each contributing ideas and initiatives toward shaping the whole. In
the eyes of its members, corporate globalization is neither inevitable nor
beneficial, but rather the product of intentional decisions and policies
promoted by the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the IMF, global
corporations, and politicians who depend on corporate money. They believe
corporate globalization is enriching the few at the expense of the many,
replacing democracy with rule by corporations and financial elites, destroying
the real wealth of the planet and society to make money for the already wealthy,
and eroding the relationships of trust and caring that are the essential
foundation of a civilized society.
Whether out of ignorance or intent to discredit, pundits of the corporate
press portrayed the Seattle demonstrators as selfish, ill-informed, and
disheveled malcontents who sought to close national borders, end trade, and
consign the poor to perpetual misery. In other words the pundits completely
missed the real story, a troubling reminder of the sorry state of the corporate
news media in the United States.
The Seattle demonstrations announced the birth of perhaps the most truly
international movement in human history--a movement with a well developed
analysis, a deep commitment to economic justice, and an informed and articulate
membership for whom concern for issues relating to trade is incidental to their
concerns for human and planetary life and their commitment to the democratic
ideal that every person has the right to a voice in the decisions that affect
their lives.
In public, members of the establishment echoed the press in dismissing the
demonstrations as the work of hooligans. In private they expressed shock at the
protestors' ability to stall the plans of the world's most powerful nations and
corporations. They soon mobilized to suppress, contain, or co-opt the dissenters
through a combination of police repression and invitations to multistakeholder
dialogues and partnerships. The tide of public opinion seems increasingly to
align with the protestors and even a few establishment voices are beginning to
call for more substantive reform.
