Corporateering: How Corporate Power Steals Your Personal Freedom... And What You Can Do About It [Hardcover]

Jamie Court (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 22, 2003

Enron. Tyco. Arthur Andersen. These companies have turned "corporate" into a four-letter word as headline after headline reveals shocking stories of executives stealing money from investors.

But money isn't all that corporations steal. In Corporateering, Jamie Court shows how corporations routinely and quietly rob us of our personal freedoms, including privacy, security, the right to legal recourse, and more. In fact, "corporateering"-the act of prioritizing commercial gain over individual, social, or cultural gain-is everywhere in our lives.

Court offers empowering strategies for counter-corporateering so we can reclaim our private lives, our right to health and safety, and other personal liberties.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Court, who directs the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights and wrote the 1999 HMO expos‚ Making a Killing, is keeping the muckraking tradition alive. He's particularly disturbed by "corporateering," a word he hopes to add to the popular lexicon, defined as "when corporations exceed their traditional role in a marketplace to dominate the cultural sphere and compromise individuals' rights, freedoms, power, and the democratic systems that protect them." Corporations have this power, Court says, because many of them have become larger than some national governments. The book explores the impact of this power on America's judicial system, education system and the public spaces that define community. In the judicial system, for instance, Court shows how corporations use their might to limit lawsuits and losses in the name of tort reform and influence the makeup of the courts through advertising and campaign funds. Court's arguments are compelling and debate worthy, but he doesn't offer much in the way of prescriptive solutions. The problem, he says, is that much corporateering occurs below the public's radar and is wrapped in widely accepted values, such as the sanctity of "free markets." His goal is to teach readers how to see corporateering's effects and speak its name aloud, and in that, he succeeds.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

From Starbucks to Nike, companies across industry lines spend untold millions of dollars selling themselves not as engines for corporate profit but as reflections of human culture, values, and relationships. Court, a consumer advocate, calls this corporateering, "when corporations exceed their traditional role in a marketplace to dominate the cultural sphere and compromise individuals' rights, freedoms, power and the democratic systems that protect them." Setting out to explore the tactics and strategies that corporations employ to transmit cultural messages to gain what he argues is too much power, Court shows through numerous examples how such corporations rob citizens of their personal freedoms, including privacy, security, and the right to legal recourse. His appendix offers language for countering corporate power over individual freedoms and a list of laws and government agencies that can protect against corporateering. This book offers an interesting perspective on the power of corporate America and a decidedly antagonistic view of it. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam (May 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585422282
• ISBN-13: 978-1585422289
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #562,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Declaration of Independence from Corporate Abuses, August 28, 2003

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Corporateering: How Corporate Power Steals Your Personal Freedom... And What You Can Do About It (Hardcover)

It has always been the case that those with excess power are likely to overuse it, at the expense of those who have little power. In the corporate world, the hand of companies can get overbearing when there's a lot at stake. Unions have always experienced tough tactics. Legislatures are wooed with money, contributions, influence and political pressure. Whistle blowers often find themselves harassed, threatened, and intimidated. All of these excesses are documented with recent examples in this thoughtful book.

If you love your relationship with your HMO, the way your credit card company charges you, what your credit report has to say, and how your privacy is protected, then you have no need for this book. If, on the other hand, you are concerned about scandals like Enron, WorldCom, and have problems with corporate marketing to children at school, your HMO, credit card companies or credit reports, you need to read this book.

Mr. Court makes a persuasive case for corporations having gained too much power, and that the time has come to redress that balance in favor of individual citizens. He also provides lots of advice about what you can do to make matters better . . . both for yourself and others. The book's main flaw is that the section on how to fix matters is the briefest.

I hope that during the elections in 2004 that these issues will receive the attention they deserve.

After you finish this excellent book, find something to do to exercise your rights from the lists that begin in Part Three.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye opener, December 12, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Corporateering: How Corporate Power Steals Your Personal Freedom... And What You Can Do About It (Hardcover)

This book will shock you with how much information on you is floating around and more importantly, who has access to it. A must read in todays world.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book, July 26, 2003

By 

Don McNay "www.donmcnay.com" (Richmond, Ky USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Corporateering: How Corporate Power Steals Your Personal Freedom... And What You Can Do About It (Hardcover)

I heard Mr. Court speak at a breakfast in San Francisco last week and purchased a copy of the book. Excellent expose of how corporations are curtailing our freedom and ending any idea of privacy. A lot of interesting things to think about.

Don McNay
President
McNay Settlement Group
Richmond, Ky. 40475