If you don't understand anymore the America way to democracy, this is the book you must read.
Extremely rational, well documented, well written and most important illuminating.
This book should become a reference guide for political activists, environmentalists, and can generate a radical change in the way we interact with politicians and corporations. ( )

This book's title would ordinarily have led this reviewer to believe she was about to read an anti-business tirade about the subjugation of government and democracy to the superior power of big business, replete with lists of how many corporations had market capitalisation as big as medium sized countries' GDP (which is to compare stock with flow anyway), yet were not answerable to the public, but had tentacles reaching deep into the pockets of executive branches of governments, and must be felled urgently.

In fact the book does indeed cover this subject matter, but in a most welcome rational manner, and with the correct perspective and the most appropriate remedies put forward.

First off, the golden age of the 1950s and 60s (sensibly prefixed with "Not Quite") has passed, and was hardly all good things to all people. Much more resembling loose-tie networks of planning than a nirvana of honesty and decency, it is described as a system destined for inevitable disruption by technology and the associated empowerment of individuals--thus it was wrecked largely by the public whose status quo it had preserved, just as soon as they had the ability to select something different.

The emergence of competition and explosions of innovation (not just technological but in finance, education and information too) steadily increased the power people have as consumers and investors--that is, economic agents--relative to their power as citizens. (It is not clear whether citizen power also increased or reduced or stayed the same). This balance shift causes the present dichotomy: people want high returns and cheap products as economic agents, but they want social responsibility and public service as citizens too. And they just got massively increased relative power in the realm of the first two, so what happens is really quite predictable. We can be of two minds about relative importance of the foregoing, but it is hardly a revelation that the pendulum has--and should have--swung given the alteration in our relative power.

To deal with this requires a proper recognition of what corporations can do and what governments can do, and there is much confusion about the former which is accurately dispelled, for those who will only apprehend it (this reviewer's experience is such that she thinks most people don't). In short corporations can only pursue financial results for their owners. (The interests of consumers and owners are, implicitly, well enough aligned that it is not necessary for companies to have any fiduciary duty to the former group.) But corporations can never act in the interest of citizens who are neither, except by happy conincidence, OR by changing the rules to increase co-indicence. Movements towards voluntary corporate social responsibility are worse than a PR sham; they are a worrying distraction from the correct way to elicit citizen-friendly corporate behavior--which is to rig the incentive structure to render it in companies' financial interest (the only interest they have) to do good. The author deserves congratulation for meticulously outlining this highly misunderstood truth.

There is useful discussion of the merit of aboloshing corporation tax (it lends weight to the illusion that companies might be citizens and have participatory rights), of disallowing corporate funding of lobbying (a lot of anti-business ctitique focuses on the wrong target of public money allocated to this), and of donations to political parties by companies. Through all this it is apparent that politicians and lawmakers are indeed in the pockets of big business, but that is because we have allowed them to be, and because our consumer/investor intetests are better served by this being the case. Neither hand-wringing nor isolated influences of people-power will change this. Only changes to the rules will do so. Lack of realisation of this retards its likelihood.

The claim that companies are "legal fiction" jarred as slightly unhelpful though--and has been seen by this reviewer as frequently used to assert that the only reason corporations act contrary to public interest is due to the bad, bad ethics of the senior executives. That, alas, is also a delusion that offers folorn solutions that really don't fly (see Ben & Jerry's, Body Shop)

Francesca ( )

http://www.morelightmorelight.com/200... ( )