Corporation Nation: How Corporations are Taking Over Our Lives -- and What We Can Do About It [Hardcover]

Charles Derber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1998

Foreword by Ralph Nader. In Corporation Nation Derber addresses the unchecked power of today’s corporations to shape the way we work, earn, buy, sell, and think—the very way we live. Huge, far-reaching mergers are now commonplace, downsizing is rampant, and our lines of communication, news and entertainment media, jobs, and savings are increasingly controlled by a handful of global—and unaccountable—conglomerates. We are, in effect, losing our financial and emotional security, depending more than ever on the whim of these corporations. But it doesn’t have to be this way, as this book makes clear. Just as the original Populist movement of the nineteenth century helped dethrone the robber barons, Derber contends that a new, positive populism can help the U.S. workforce regain its self-control.

Drawing on core sociological concepts and demonstrating the power of the sociological imagination, he calls for revisions in our corporate system, changes designed to keep corporations healthy while also making them answerable to the people. From rewriting corporate charters to altering consumer habits, Derber offers new aims for businesses and empowering strategies by which we all can make a difference.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

We must take up a "positive populism" to defend society against corporations, while at the same time protecting the health of business, argues Boston College sociologist Derber (The Wilding of America). Derber begins with a useful, somewhat polemical survey of growing corporate power, synthesizing and critiquing thinkers such as William Greider and John Kenneth Galbraith and occasionally being unable to resist calling the replacement of workers with contractors "job genocide." He reminds us that seemingly private corporations are actually quite dependent, relying on government for subsidies, infrastructure and trade law, and suggests that strengthened unions can help narrow national income gaps. He warns, however, that the current trend toward corporate "social responsibility" distracts from the need for government policies and proposes a move toward the German-style stakeholder corporation in which workers and community representatives have a voice in governance; he calls for all corporations over $1 billion to be "public corporations," required to "serve clear public needs." Change, Derber suggests, might be effected by the labor movement in collaboration with civic groups, multiculturalists and environmentalists. Derber is genuinely engaged; generally even-handed, this is a necessary critique.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Derber is a Boston College sociology professor who seems always to be in search of connections and grand themes. In The Wilding of America (1996), the most recent of his seven previous books, he compares the teenagers who savagely attacked a Central Park jogger in 1989 to turn-of-the-century robber barons and to those who operate modern-day sweatshops. In Wilding he also anticipated his current attack on corporate America and its abuse of power, calling for a more virtuous capitalism. Now he debunks the "corporate mystique" and shows how corporations unduly direct public policy and affect private lives. But instead of simply decrying corporate excess, Derber sets an agenda for "how to be against corporate power [but] for business." He advocates a global populism and recommends joining in four movements that he says are leading in the fight to "return basic rights from corporations to the citizens to whom they rightly belong." David Rouse

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (October 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312192886
• ISBN-13: 978-0312192884
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #546,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Penetrating Look At Multi-National Corporations' Influence, June 21, 2000

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Corporation Nation: How Corporations are Taking Over Our Lives -- and What We Can Do About It (Paperback)

Like another recent book, "Opposing The System" by Charles Reich, this effort by sociologist Charles Derber takes aim against the elitist and anti-democratic influence of contemporary multi-national corporations. Noting that corporations have so invaded the social, economic and political arenas of life in modern postindustrial societies that it is problematic for an individual to live a free and meaningful lifestyle without surrendering vital parts of his liberty and free choice to the whims and caprices of corporate policy. Thus, Derber claims, corporations have transformed the meaning of citizenship into a silent euphemism for corporate membership, and the society tends to identify loyalty to these organizations as a sort of patriotism (buy American).

This is an interesting and entertaining reading experience, and Derber's thesis is similar to and compatible with a number of other contemporary social critics like Reich, Neil Postman, Bill McKibben, and Kirkpatrick Sales. To the extent the rise of multinational corporation to a position of nearly exclusive domination of world markets with the new "global capitalism" (touted by politicians as the best thing since sliced bread) continues and endures, to that extent will our lives be increasingly influenced and characterized the kinds of choice these corporate entities view to be in their own narrowly conceived and fundamentally anti-democratic goals and objectives. Thus, to an ever-greater extent, these corporate entities are empowered at our expense to influence, manipulate, and even dictate the specific terms of social, economic and even political transactions within and without our borders.

Probably this single greatest recent example of this trend were the actions by the U.S Congress to ratify both the NAFTA and GATT trade treaties, whose main beneficiaries were multinational corporate entities. There was little or no meaningful national debate, And most Americans were so distracted by their petty personal pursuits of money, material goods, and the good life that they hardly paid any attention to all this happening under their noses. Rather than focusing on these issues, the national electronic media chose to cover other non-news events like the Michael Jackson child molestation charge, the OJ Simpson trial, the Louise Woodward trial, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, etc. Meanwhile, the corporations achieved their goals, and the future of American worker was sealed. All this transpired without any meaningful or informed public debate. And isn't it quite a coincidence that the electronic media in this country is owned, lock, stock, and barrel by several different multinational corporations.

The author offers an alternative by way of what he terms "positive populism", by which he then outlines an alternative approach to re-engaging the American public in a self-enlightened attempt to regain control of their lives and future through the available political process. This is an interesting, provocative, and often entertaining book, well written and well argued, and one which will engage the reader in a thoughtful process regarding the nature of our contemporary situation vis-à-vis the powers that be. I highly recommend it. Enjoy

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History, Analysis, and Solutions, April 28, 2000

By 

L. McGonigal (Lexington, KY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Corporation Nation: How Corporations are Taking Over Our Lives -- and What We Can Do About It (Paperback)

What seduced me into buy Derber's book was opening page where he put forth the idea of a "corporate mystique" - a concept he derived from Friedan's "feminie mystique". He noted that American workers live with an impending sense of doom, but can't pinpoint the source of their trepidation.

Derber's book is easily read, and offers the reader very useful information. He goes through the history of the corporation and populist movements in America and also provides a nice analysis of corporate influence on people's lives, and, ultimately on democracy. What I like most about Corporation Nation is that Derber devoted the second half of the book to providing solutions and ways that the reader can become involved to influence change. Much of what Derber wrote in '98 about current populism is proving true - a grassroots movement is growing in America. The rise of union and community groups working together for change, as well as the strengthening of third parties, such as the Green Party, are examples of the increased consciousness and activity that Derber saw the seeds of when the book was written. I highly recommend this book to anyone who lives with that mysterious sense of impending doom.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolute must for any citizen who cares about America, December 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Corporation Nation: How Corporations are Taking Over Our Lives -- and What We Can Do About It (Hardcover)

Professor Derber's book is one of the most profoundly important books I've ever read about the impact of corporations on all our lives. The book has awakened me to critical dimensions of corporate power and influence. Anyone who thinks that corporations are private entities only should read this work. Not only does it tell some important truths about corporate ascendancy in America, but it also offer real solutions to the problem. It is especially critical that those working for corporations understand how and why their jobs are in jeopardy.