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Regime Change Begins at Home: Freeing America from Corporate Rule

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If you have read either Corporation Nation or People Before Profit, I am sure you will want to read this new book by Charles Derber. In my opinion his new book provides an even more readable introduction to the ideas of an author who is on the path to becoming one of the nation's foremost public intellectuals. As far as I am concerned this is not a good book, it is a great book.

According to Derber we are currently in the midst of the "Third Corporate Regime," a political regime that began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and continues to the present. In case you were wondering, the "First Corporate Regime" ran from 1865-1901 (the Gilded Age) and the "Second Corporate Regime" ran from 1921-1933 (the Roaring Twenties). Thus regimes, as Derber uses the term, refer to broad swings with major realignments of power. All three are referred to as corporate regimes reflecting the marriage between corporate and political power, with big corporations having a great deal of control over the national government. A distinctive aspect of the Third Corporate Regime is that is has power that can be compared with that of both the British and the Roman Empires. It rules "not only America but much of the world."

If Bush wins in the 2004 election, Derber's view is that this will further solidify the Third Corporate Regime, particularly if he wins with substantial majorities in both houses of Congress. The fear is that the nation will become even more of a "corpocracy," his name for a pseudo-democracy in which a formally democratic government become a vehicle for corporate control. Kerry's election would reduce the damage done during the next four years, but it would not, by itself, represent genuine regime change.

A strength of this book is that Derber offers solutions. The entire third section of the book is devoted to what can be done to bring about the needed regime change. The election of a Democratic president and a Democratically controlled Congress might prove to be a regime-tipping election that would help create the conditions under which social movements dedicated to regime change could flourish and set the stage for eventual regime change down the pike.

While this book is written primarily for a Democratic and progressive audience it will inform and be of use to traditional conservatives and even some corporate elites. Those who are in close contact with corporate elites would be well advised to read this book because it provides a roadmap as to how progressives could topple the Third Corporate Regime. It also makes a very persuasive case as to why there is likely to be a strong movement to do just that in the not too distant future.

This book is a very easy read. It is hard to put it down and it could not be dealing with a more important set of issues. If enough people read this book, together we are going to be able to make a difference.

When I first heard that Charles Derber's new book was entitled "Regime Change Begins at Home," I chuckled, and figured that he'd joined the Al Franken/Michael Moore wing of political sloganeering. Not that I have anything against Franken and Moore -- far from it -- but I expect greater depth from Derber, whose fine "Corporation Nation" was the first book to not only sound the alarm against corporate power but also dig into its roots.

So I got a copy of "Regime Change Begins at Home" -- and found not only the hoped-for depth but also a entire new perspective on politics that, once seen, is obviously true. This is quite simply the most important political book I've read in years. I urge you to get a copy as soon as you can, read it, and spread the word to your friends to do the same. This is a book that can make a difference in the direction of our country and the world, but only if lots of people read it. Happily, Derber writes not like the academic he is but in a clear, simple, populist style.

I won't go on and on. Suffice it to say that Derber, a sociologist and political economist at Boston University, uses the word "regime" not as an epithet but in its deepest meaning. He says that American political history since the Civil War has had only five regimes, each spanning several presidencies; we are now living in the Third Corporate Regime. The First Corporate Regime lasted from 1865 to 1901, when it was supplanted by the Progressive Regime; that was supplanted by the Second Corporate Regime during the Roaring Twenties; it gave way to the New Deal Regime, which lasted longer than any other but ended in 1980 as the Third Corporate Regime took power with Ronald Reagan. Regimes come and regimes go, Derber makes clear, and he delves into why they go and the necessary ingredients of regime change. Read this book and you will see George Bush, John kerry, and Howard Dean in new light.

The good news is that Derber sees and describes wide cracks in the Third Corporate Regime, and suggests how to stick crowbars in them and get on with regime change. It all makes elegant sense. Please, for the good of our nation and the world, get this book and read it -- and act on its wisdom.

Derber has hit the nail on the head again - in this case it's a bulls-eye, with Bush in the center. But much more important than Bush the individual is Derber's penetrating analysis of the corporate/political elites' control of our democratic processes. By exposing the underlying structure of this control, Derber gives us a meaningful vantage point to understand how the unabashed self-interest of a powerful minority negatigvely impacts the vast majority. I found Derber's upbeat style and witty presentation ultimately hopeful. It's a complicated topic, but this is a readable and important book. We need to wake up ourselves and our country to the reality of what's really happening under Bush (not to mention whoever wins in Nov) - let's demand our leaders and institutions do a much better job of implementing the fundamental ideals and human rights that our country was founded on and that we teach school children to believe in.

I am a very big Charles Derber fan. He is, in my view, the most articulate public intellectual writing about the way corporations have been taking over America, the world, and our lives. As a person greatly worried about the erosion of honest democracy in the U.S., I devoured his earlier books entitled Corporation Nation and People Before Profits. Now, Derber has written another absolute winner with profound implications for political and social renewal. In Regime Change Begins at Home Derber has produced a truthful, witty, provocative, sometimes funny, and profound analysis of corporate ascendancy. He has found a way to combine playful writing with startling insight about the state of the nation. At a time when so many Americans feel powerless to change the course of their government and their lives Derber has provided a reasoned manifesto that renews optimism about the possibility of a new and more humane America.

Please read this book right away since it has such immediate relevance for the upcoming presidential election. Derber provides the straight scoop about the ties between the war in Iraq, the horribly incestuous connections between Bush's presidency and ever-increasing corporate power, the debilitating practical and moral implications of America's empire building throughout the world, the relentless concentration of unthinkable wealth in the hands of so few, and the economic plight of average Americans. While Derber spells out the high stakes of beating Bush in November, the book offers a broader vision based on the notion of regime changes. What makes this work so compelling is Derber's ability to let us see contemporary political events from a broader historical perspective. The book is less about Bush than it is about the possibility, perhaps the inevitability, of regime changes.

History teaches that progressive movements (Roosevelt's "New Deal" being a striking example) have periodically transformed the relationship between the government and corporations, and, thus, the priorities and programs directed toward the production of human capital. Those of us who dearly want a change in direction will draw great hope from this book. Derber shows that certain presidential elections are critically important moments in creating the possibility for regime change. He is not claiming that a democratic victory in November will immediately bring such regime change. Still, you leave this book persuaded that the upcoming election could be a "regime tipping" one. Even if Bush retains the presidency, this book outlines the more global processes through which new political paradigms can eventually emerge.

If you want to participate in creating a more just America (and world) this book will tell you lots of ways to contribute to that end. Even the most hardened cynics about the erosion of democracy will leave this book refreshed. Derber shows how easy it can be to align yourself with social movements and to feel that your voice can matter.

Certainly, one way to empower yourself is to read Regime Change Begins At Home, to share its insights in daily conversation, and to urge everyone you know who yearns for a genuine political and social renaissance to run to their nearest bookstore to pick up a copy. It will inspire them and others, in turn.

The author writes that the costs of the Vietnam war weakened American economic power ; in the meantime West Europe/Japan had grown into full-fledge economic competitors with the U.S. In order to better compete in this environment, corporations decided that they couldn't tolerate the New Deal concessions to unions and other measures, so America began its rightward shift.

He writes, quoting the New York Times and Paul Krugman in The Nation(see endnotes), that from the early 1970's to 2000, the average income in real terms fell by seven percent for the bottom ninety percent in this country. Meanwhile, the income of the top one percent rose by 148 percent, the top tenth of one percent rose by 343 percent, and so on. The unemployed and "working poor" today comprise 40 percent of our employed class. Reagan's tax cuts helped this upward redistribution. In 1998, General Motors, Pepsi, Chevron, Texaco and Enron paid no federal taxes. Bush tax cuts have targeted the wealthy in obvious ways: taxes on capital gains and dividends,, which the vast majority of Americans do not report on their returns. Then there was the estate tax...Meanwhile a treasury department report suppressed in Bush's 2004 budget report projected the national debt reaching eventually reaching 44 trillion dollars. . Bush has proposed the further draconian measure of allow tax-shelter savings accounts where if enough money that only the rich can afford to save is placed it will be tax-free forever.

He should have quoted David Stockman's admission that the Reaganites embarked upon their insane military spending produced deficit in part in order to have an excuse to slash social programs. Bush is repeating this. Bush has already set in motion a partial Medicare privatization. Our political order encourages companies to move overseas to exploit repressed third world labor while leaving in wake a horde of workers who have to grasp for short term/temp jobs and have no health insurance, etc. It allows speculators to move two trillion dollars around the globe a day and leave financial disaster in their wake. It allows for companies to manipulate their stock value with their accountant's complicity. Now mutual funds are getting ready to have the government give them social security funds, so they can gamble with them on the stock market, an alarming prospect giving the recent accounting scandals on Wall Street. He quotes Fortune magazine as saying that the Enron-style chicaneries were quite widespread, not a few bad apples. Meanwhile the trade deficit may become completely unmanageable. The rich continue to get their corporate welfare, speculative bonanzas, etc but the country in the long term is heading towards a catastrophic debt.

He notes that the Cold War was a cover to support right wing dictators and death squads that repressed third world workers for the benefit of corporations. He mentions the flat tax imposed by Bremer on Iraq and the giving away of Iraq's economic assets to foreigners. He notes that Bush later admitted that there is no evidence of an Iraq-9/11 connection; for the Iraq war, he invoked a law that allowed the president to move against countries who played a role in the 9-11 butchery. Obviously the law didn't apply here. The "war on terror" is mainly about distracting Americans from Bush's draconian domestic measures and a cover to increase support for such pro-American, pro-oil and gas company murderers as Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan. He observes that Wolfowitz, Feith, etc. set up a Pentagon body (OSP) that would feed them the bogus intelligence for the war they needed.

Kerry would be somewhat better than Bush, but both are supporters of the current monstrous corporate order, though less extreme than Bush. The Republicans can gerrymander themselves into congressional victories.. They can throw voters off the rolls. But student, labor and other currently growing grassroots groups can affect a great change. He points to Moveon.org mobilizing its grassroots to get congress to repeal an FCC deregulatory measure . "An amazing organization!" he gushes about Moveon(but will they treat a democratic president as harshly when he does similar things as Bush?). He observes that Dennis Kucinich is one who has been overwhelmingly re-elected by the "Nascar Dads", "Reagan Democrats," by strongly articulating a populist economic message. Half of Americans don't vote; the dems could mobilize them but....

The author is a little simplistic in his invocation of American nostalgia. Teddy Roosevelt preached that corporations needed to be controlled in the public interest but that was mostly fraud. Corporations may have been paranoid about FDR but they were still very much in control. Inequality stayed the same from the beginning to the end of his rule. But his empowering to some extent of unions did play a role in eventually creating the American Middle Class. Gene Debs was a much better American hero.

The author's "new democracy" scheme for America, though accepting capitalism, goes a long way towards expanding democracy in this country.

I think the author should have made his factual points less vague; as it is, his main concentration seems to be to exhort the reader.

This review is a modified version of my original one published in the Autumn, 2005 issue of the journal, Personnel Psychology, pages 815-818.

Charles Derber, a prolific author (nine books since 1988), media commentator, and professor of sociology at Boston College had hoped this book might help derail the Bush administration. Alas, it was not meant to be, apparently. Nevertheless, Derber's book is still essential reading for thoughtful citizens worried about the status and direction of our nation, for much remains to be done, and Derber gives us the rationales and imperatives for acting and some suggested directions.

The general public is conditioned by its government and media to think of "regimes" as bad governments abroad to be neutralized if not overthrown by our country's might. Derber refutes this notion. The dictionary's definition, after all, is a nutral one-a regime being "any `system of rule' at home or abroad." There have been, in his assessment, two good and three bad regimes in the course of our history. The bad ones, including the current one, have all been "corporate regimes."

In the first of the book's three parts, he portrays the first four regimes, starting with the corporate regime that "was built by the robber barons" of the Gilded Age. The public backlash to it ushered in the trust busting regime of Teddy Roosevelt. Big business responded with the second corporate regime presided over by corporate toady's Harding and Hoover. FDR bowled it over with his New Deal regime. The corporate reaction to it ultimately created the third and current corporate regime, the subject of the second part of the book, with President Bush carrying this regime to the extreme in Derber's opinion.

Derber claims the current corporate regime was "conceived in the 1970s and shaped by the election of President Ronald Reagan. Yet Derber acknowledges that the current regime's self-preserving strategy of "marrying the enemy" (Iraq) had its precedents in the Cold War and the Vietnam War. Thus, I think he erred in not dating the start of the current regime with President Eisenhower. I personally think the latter's valedictory address about the military-industrial complex was as much a mea culpa as a warning and that the defense industry together with its demagogic and tenure-loving allies in Congress had a self interest in America's militaristic actions after WWII, the fear (hyped as it was) of the Soviet Union notwithstanding.

Derber likens regimes to "political houses designed and run by groups or organizations that control the money." Carrying the analogy further, he says the "house rests on five pillars; a dominant institution, a mode of politics, a social contract, a foreign policy, and an ideology." Each has a distinctive form in the current corporate regime.

The dominant institution is the transnational corporation, headed by the "top ten" (e.g., GE), with their total assets alone worth around $4 trillion, more than the whole economy of many countries. Look at the book's subtitle to see just how dominant Derber thinks big corporations really are. They rule America. Many other authors whose books I've read share his views or are even more critical of Corporate America. David Korten, a former Harvard economics professor, for instance, believes big corporations are ruling and ruining the world, not just America (Korten, 2001).

Like the other authors, Derber marshals considerable arguments and evidence on how such corporations through their actions are predatory, domineering, and destructive of the common welfare. These actions include sacrificing American labor by downsizing and outsourcing work, causing "one-third of all workers to resort to tempting, freelancing, part and timing; privatizing government for profit (e.g., the grabbing of public wilderness forests by mining and timber companies; abandoning the conservative foundation of democratic capitalism through speculative financing and lobbying for corporate subsidies and tax breaks (e.g. seven of the largest corporations paid no federal taxes at all in 1998); controlling the mass media to indoctrinate the public; eroding countervailing forces, such as unions; and making the public passively dependent on corporations for almost every sphere of life; etc., etc.

The current regime's mode of politics is the "corpocracy," in which big government and big business exchange roles, except, big government keeps getting bigger. Derber illustrates this pillar with the familiar revolving door of Bush appointees from big business who while there helped write lax federal regulations overseeing their business and then, with a tour of "duty" in government, ensure that the regulations remain lax or not enforced.

The third pillar, social contract, is actually an antonym, social insecurity, in the current regime that intends to trade "the social security of workers and citizens for profit maximization." While Bush's plan to commercialize part of the safety net appears at least temporaily to be dead in the water as a result of the staggering costs accumulating from hurricane Katrina, don't write off determined neo-conservaties' persistence to downsize government, or "starve the beast," as they callously put it.
The fourth pillar supporting the current corporate regime is an imperialistic foreign policy. Its aim, Derber charges, "is to shape a global corporate order under the political and military direction of the United States." The policy reveals a disdain for international law, a proclivity for military intervention, contempt for American civil liberties, protectionism of US businesses from foreign competition, and, through such captive organizations as the World Trade Organization, a push for "inviolable corporate rights" anywhere in the world.

The last pillar is the current ideology that Derber calls the "corporate mystique," a government and corporate propaganda campaign that trumpets personal liberty and "free market" capitalism all the while pursuing an "unimagined freedom for big business and big problems for the rest of us."

The first two corporate regimes were undone by public backlash to "terminal socioeconomic crises." Derber believes the same fate awaits the current corporate regime and points to several developments that are facilitating a grass-roots civil rebellion, including the networking of activist groups via the Internet locally and globally, activist students "sprouting up on campuses," and the rising voice of such groups as "Janitors for Justice."

If bad regimes inevitably self-destruct then why, one could ask, does Derber bother to write this book, or at least its third part that is chock full of ideas for ending the current regime? My answer is that I do not think his scholarship and professionalism would have allowed him not to write this book. As for its third part, he explains that he wrote it because "most political books attack a problem but offer no solutions."

In introducing his ideas, he returns to his analogy of the political house by proposing new pillars for it; an active citizens' network, a new democracy of ordinary people, real social security, a foreign policy of collective security, and an ideology of citizen empowerment. He then suggests numerous ways for freeing America from corporate rule, some of which would require legislative or regulatory changes such as the rewriting of state corporate charters, slowing the revolving door with a ten-year freeze on reentry, and taxing short-term, speculative global investment. He also provides good rationales for uniting disparate groups such as conservatives versus progressives into grass roots social movements all "under a big tent" aimed at ending the current regime. Finally, he urges the reader to become active and lists the websites for five activist groups, each targeting one of the five pillars.

I hope my review motivates you to read his book. We all should know what thoughtful critics have to say about the corporate role in and its effects on our society, and we all should decide what we think about it and what if anything we should do about it.

Reference

Korten, DC. (2001, 2nd Ed.). When corporations rule the world. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler and Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.

In "Regime Change Begins at Home" Charles Derber does a very good job of explaining the "regime" and how it is made up of not just the obvious political aspect of government but also the corporate aspect.

The audience for this book is a wide one, including liberals, conservatives, and populists.

One of the lessons of this book is that regime change has happened in American politics throughout our history. The New Deal programs of FDR and the Reagan Revolution are two examples of citizen voters promoting regime change.

There are some sobering comparisons of George W. Bush to other presidents in history. Herbert Hoover presided during a similar, massive loss of jobs. That's not a comforting comparison!

Mr. Derber offers some history on the formation of corporate-political power groups such as the Business Roundtable and the Heritage Foundation in 1972.

He also traces the regime foreign policy plan that Dick Cheney advocated already in 1992 "for maintaining preeminence, precluding the rise of a great rival power."

There are some disturbing admissions from C.I.A. operatives from the 1980's that they were present and sometimes advised on torture sessions in foreign countries. Torture and American politics is not something new!

The author also highlights the fact that nearly every nation that we have deployed troops to, or focused military and political interest on, is either an oil producer or the location of a pipeline.

Charles Derber exposed another motive for the high degree of publicity and promotion of fear related to the "War on Terror", it's to hide as long as possible the horrific stae of the U.S. economy! The financial crisis in the news this week is precisely what the author wrote about!

Two of the many quotes that were particularly good were:

From page 159- "All corporate regimes engage in covert war against their populations, since their aim is to redistribute wealth and power form the people to elites."

"The war on terrorism is aimed as much at undermining civil liberties and active citizenship as it is at stopping terrorists."- page 236.

Despite being 4 years old, "Regime Change Begins at Home" has some website addresses that are still viable. These sites are listed in the Appendix.
Charles Derber offers easy paths that anyone can follow to get involved in changing the current government or regime.
So the book contains valid complaints about loss of jobs and other pressing concerns, but also a solution to correct or improve the status for every day American citizens