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Insurrection: Citizen Challenges to Corporate Power
Kevin Danaher Manufacturer: TF-ROUTL ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover  Company Profiles
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ASIN: 0415946778 |
Book Description
Half of the world¹s 100 largest economies are not nations, they are corporations. A mere 500 companies control 70 percent of world trade. Such concentrations of wealth pose a clear and present danger to the health of our democracy. Corporate campaign cash elects our politicians. Corporate lobbyists write our laws.
But what corporations have gained in political power they have lost in legitimacy. A growing number of people--environmental activists, trade unionists, family farmers--are challenging the power of giant corporations, demanding that they be held accountable to someone other than their shareholders.
These efforts exploded to the surface of American politics in November 1999,when tens of thousands of people shut down the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle. Not long after that, a BusinessWeek poll found that 77 percent of U.S. citizens feel that corporations have too much power and that was before the Enron scandal broke.
In Insurrection, Kevin Danaher and Jason Mark, twohigh-profile activists, present a series of stories chronicling the accomplishments of the budding corporate accountability movement: the uncovering of major retailers¹ links to sweatshop abuses; the revelation that big tobacco companies deceived the public about the health risks of smoking; the questioning of corporations¹ ties to repressive dictatorships; the shaming of food processors into selling dolphin-safe tuna; and the battles against NAFTA and the WTO. Together, these struggles seek to fulfill the idea that in a democracy no institution is above the law.
Filled with compelling accounts that are both lively and informative, Insurrection is the definitive book on the burgeoning anti-corporate globalization movement.
Customer Reviews:
This book is worth reading!.......2004-02-08
Much space is devoted to the topic of Brands. In the chapter on sweatshops Nike gets lots of attention, primarily because everybody is familiar with them, but also because as a Global Brand they have a name to protect. The authors discuss how the activist goal was to put the company in a situation where "all they had to do to rehabilitate their Brand was stop using sweatshops for manufacturing." They acknowledge how it would be much harder to go after the no-name manufacturers with clothes on the same racks, even though their sleaze problems could easily be worse. After reading the book I had a better sense of what a Brand is all about.
Another topic that gets a lot of attention is how many of our consumer issues have global implications. In the tuna campaign the activists thought they had a great victory when they got Congress to pass a law against the practices that killed so many dolphins. Unfortunately, the tuna fishermen responded to the law by "offshoring", changing their boat registration so they could fly a foreign flag. Sometimes they didn't even move where they fished or docked, they just did their registration paperwork in Mexico or some more exotic Capital. The tobacco companies responded to the shrinking of the American cigarette market by developing markets overseas. Over and over the idea that we need a coordinated international response to this kind of stuff comes up.
The lesson is driven home in spades in the case of Burma. Activists worked to get local jurisdictions to vote to stop doing business with the totalitarian regime in power there, a strategy that had worked well in South Africa's case. They were undermined by international agreements that made such initiatives "illegal barriers to trade". Even so, a lot of companies were talked out of doing business there. The country was forced to hold elections, but the pressure was not great enough that the people elected were actually given power. I could almost see frustrated activists saying "well at least we made something happen".
The last case recounted is "The Battle In Seattle", where activists shut down the WTO in the full limelight of all kinds of press. They show how many lessons learned about using the Internet to get the word out in earlier campaigns like the Burma one kept the corporations from fully controlling the spin on the news the way they had in previous eras. The authors consider it a great victory that the previously quiet backwater of international trade negotiations was now promoted to the front page of political debate. Told from the activist point of view, the book does a good job of tying all these issues together.
People have the power to redeem the work of fools (P. Smith).......2003-12-06
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Insurrection: taking on corporate power.(Book Review): An article from: Multinational Monitor
Robert Weissman Manufacturer: Essential Information, Inc. ProductGroup: Book Binding: Digital ASIN: B00082DX4A Release Date: 2005-07-31 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Multinational Monitor, published by Essential Information, Inc. on January 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1301 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.|
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Glimpsing another mindset.(Book Review): An article from: Regulation
Neil Hrab Manufacturer: Cato Institute ProductGroup: Book Binding: Digital ASIN: B00082IHD2 Release Date: 2005-07-31 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Regulation, published by Cato Institute on March 22, 2004. The length of the article is 743 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Books: