The Corporate Planet [Paperback]

Joshua Karliner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1997

From the Tokyo timber terminal, where Japanese conglomerates process rain-forest logs from around the world, to India, China, and Brazil, where global chemical and automobile concerns are rapidly setting up shop, transnationals have made their presence felt in nearly every nation on Earth.
Joshua Karliner brilliantly exposes how transnationals, aided by free trade agreements and World Bank policies, are leading protagonists in the world's most pressing environmental dramas. He takes the reader behind the scenes of the global public-relations companies that launch elaborate campaigns to encourage rampant consumerism as well as to create "green" images for major polluters.
With lively case histories of Chevron, the company that the late Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa identified, with Shell, as the most serious environmental threat to the Niger River Delta, and the Mitsubishi Group, which continues to clear-cut vast swaths through aspen forests to produce 8 million pairs of disposable chopsticks every day, The Corporate Planet offers frightening documentation of the central role transnationals play in environmental destruction.
Arguing that transnational misdeeds can be overcome, Karliner recounts empowering stories of communities confronting the ill effects of corporate colonialism to create their own "grassroots globalization" movements. This important and timely book is a significant contribution to the battle against irresponsible corporate behavior.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

With the globalization of business, Karliner argues, transnational corporations have exported pollution to countries with lax environmental laws, dramatically increasing the danger of ecological catastrophe. Globalization has also displaced indigenous cultures and sustainable, local economies. The author, who directs the Transnational Resource and Action Center, a nonprofit environmental organization, accuses corporations of working with cooperative politicians and officials to avoid existing laws and squash attempts to strengthen environmental protections. He examines Chevron and Mitsubishi in depth, using them as case studies to demonstrate corporate responsibility for creating pollution. Karliner makes many good points and uncovers numerous abuses, but his strident language eventually undermines his thesis. For an overview of environmental issues, a better choice is Ann and Paul Ehrlich's Betrayal of Science and Reason (LJ 10/15/96).?Randy Dykhuis, Michigan Lib. Consortium, Lansing
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

An overly shrill indictment of transnational corporations' leading role in environmental havoc--but an indictment that nonetheless finds its mark. Eco-activist Karliner sounds themes current since the 1970s: Big Capitalism pledges loyalty only to itself and not to any particular nation or region; the First World's large corporations view the rest of the planet as a source of raw materials and labor; the likes of Coca-Cola and Ford think only of the present bottom line, and not the long-term effects of their rush for profit. ``Increasingly flagless and stateless,'' Karliner charges, the transnational corporations ``weave global webs of production, commerce, culture and finance virtually unopposed.'' In making his case that such unrestricted power is a bad thing, Karliner relies too heavily on rhetoric and abstraction; he writes purplishly, for instance, of ``our Blue Planet--home to untold cultural and biological diversity, to clear, raging rivers and majestic, ancient forests, to a plethora of civilizations, nations, tribes, and idiosyncratic communities.'' More statistics and less gush would be welcome in such instances. When he gets down to cases, Karliner is much better. He examines, for example, the Chevron Corporation's quest for control over world oil supplies, a quest that involves the support of brutally oppressive regimes in places like Nigeria and Indonesia and the environmental degradation of huge districts around the world. Karliner is especially fuzzy when it comes to recommending what the average First World citizen can do to help in ``reclaiming the Blue Planet from the clutches of corporate globalization,'' a matter in which his book is singularly unhelpful. This is all too bad, because a glance at the headlines suggests that Karliner is probably right in broad outline. An argument better framed would have done his cause much greater service. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 318 pages
• Publisher: Sierra Club Books (November 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871564343
• ISBN-13: 978-0871564344
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,564,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustive and Brilliant, July 26, 2003

By 

2nearsighted (Dublin, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Corporate Planet (Paperback)

Karliner has a rare eye for absurdity that makes this more than a mere indictment of corporations. His description of how Chevron pacified an indigenous tribe in Papua New Guinea--by creating a Disneyland recreation of their own culture to impress them--is something so terrifying that no novelist could conceive it. He describes how, years later, the tribe had changed their traditional war paint to mimic the Chevron logo. This isn't just a dry treatise on the perils of globalization. It's a book filled with color, stories, and fascinating details about this bizarre time in the world. From the smell of gasoline seeping up through the richest homes in Playa Del Rey, California, to the history of Standard Oil, to the fight over the forests in the Northwest, to the structure of Japanese corporations--Karliner's book is an overlooked masterpiece that details so many unexpected facets of the global economy.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A seminal work about globalization, November 2, 2002

By 

Malvin (Frederick, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: The Corporate Planet (Paperback)

Joshua Karliner's "The Corporate Planet" was published prior to the Seattle WTO protests. The book's expert analysis of the relationship between private corporations and the plundering of the earth's resources successfully contextualized the protests as few other books written at that time were able.

Since then of course, many have written about globalization and its effects. But I think Karliner's work continues to stand out from the pack and has in fact gained strength as events continue to unfold. The ascendancy of the pro-oil industry Bush administration and its strident anti-environmentalist agenda seems to confirm his thesis: namely, that corporations and their elected cronies (or unelected cronies, in Bush's case) often proclaim themselves to be environmentally friendly on the one hand while simultaneously rolling back environmental protections on the other.

When push comes to shove, the quest to accumulate profits wins over the environment. Karliner does an excellent job of showing how corporate PR or "greenwash" and corporate sustainable development initiatives provide smokescreens for doing business as usual. But when given the opportunity, Karliner documents how companies such as Chevron lobby hard to roll back protections when given a favorable political situation like the one that existed when Republicans gained control of Congress in the mid-1990s.

The author supports his theory by effectively using case studies to illustrate how these dynamics play out in the real world. Large corporations such as Mitsubishi use their economic power to bend governments and citizens to their will, in the process impoverishing communities and environments as local resources are stripped away for the benefit of distant investors.

Karliner proposes a number of remedies that can help turn the situation around. He reasons that greater democratic input and corporate acocuntability is badly needed if we want people and the environment to be given primacy over the rights of the privileged few to reap the rewards of globalization for themselves. While Karliner may not have detailed a specified course of action -- no single person could be expected to do that -- it seems obvious that he has successfully defined the parameters of the struggle.

Intelligently written and supplemented with numerous footnotes and statistics, I believe it is not too much to say that "The Corporate Planet" is a classic work. I strongly recommended it for those who want to learn more about globalization and the central role corporations are playing in the destruction of the environment.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excerpts of Various Reviews, May 28, 2003

By 

Joshua Karliner (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Corporate Planet (Paperback)

Here are some excerpts from other reviews of The Corporate Planet

Thoughtful analysis of globalization's ecological and social impacts and of efforts by "corporate environmentalists" to control how problems and solutions are defined....With ecological sustainability, social justice, and democratic participation as his guiding principles, Karliner celebrates "grassroots globalization"--citizens demanding responsible environmental behavior from global corporations--becoming stronger and more articulate around the world.

-- Booklist

A fine effort....The book reads easily, without being breezy, moving from concrete illustrations of how giant global corporations are affecting the lives of ordinary people to more abstract discussion of underlying issues.

--The Ecologist

In The Corporate Planet, [Joshua Karliner] explains how transnational corporations like Dow clean up their image rather than their act.

--The Nation

A Magellan-like journey around the globe, giving readers a guided tour that identifies the protectors and poisoners of planet Earth.

--Monthly Review

A thoughtful examination of the new international balance of power in the global economy.

--San Francisco Bay Guardian