Nemesis Project: Challenging corporate power requires challenging economic orthodoxy

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Challenging corporate power requires challenging economic orthodoxy

"We need to develop a new way of conceiving the economic process. In calling for an end to economics, I am not suggesting that we should dismiss everything that economists have learned about the economy. Some economic insights are useful. Our goal should be to build up an understanding of the economy in a context that transcends the narrow context of economic theory that characterizes modern economic theory. In doing so, we may lay the groundwork for an economy that transcends our outmoded capitalist way of life."

Michael Perelman Railroading Economics

Stephen Marglin calls it the "dismal science". Michael Perelman writes about the ideological straitjacket of modern economics. James Galbraith describes contemporary economics in terms of a god that failed, a governing creed whose fallacies have been exposed by events of recent years. In his book Economia Australian Geoff Davies writes that we have all become so accustomed to the current economic regime that we fail to see how absurd it is. He is right.

Contemporary economics provides the intellectual justification for corporate power. If we are to expose and challenge corporate power then we must also expose the fallacies at the heart of contemporary economics and economic theory. With that goal in mind I am currently reading the books pictured, all of which present a radical and sustained critique of contemporary economics. They challenge the idea that market and market forces are a solution to our social, environmental and economic problems.

These books don't just expose discredited contemporary economic orthodoxies, they also document the destructive effects of those orthodoxies in the real world (rather than the theories of economists and business leaders). These authors more importantly set an alternative and radical economic agenda for the future.

The books pictured include:

Stephen Margeli (2008) The Dismal Science

Michael Perelman (2006) Railroading Economics

James Galbraith (2008) The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and why Liberals Should to

Geoff Davies (2004) Economia: New Economic systems to empower people and support the living world

James Gustav Speth (2008) The Bridge at the End of the World

Barry Lynn (2009) Cornered:The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Dynamics of Destruction

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Reflections

“A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance.”
Wendell Berry

"Corporations are to democracy what a T-Rex is to your checkers game"
Rebecca Solnit

"Political systems merely reflect the society which gives rise to them. And we live in a society-and a world-where the power of corporations is much greater than that of "ordinary people". Corporate power can readily be seen in our homes, our workplaces, our public spaces and our national debates"
Josh Fear

"The deep irony is that it is the unfettered rise of corporate power that presents the biggest threat to free markets, and to the ability of free markets to promote individual freedom, equality before the law and equitable prosperity"
Stephanie Blankenburg and Dan Plesch

" Wealth privilege remains embedded in the ancient institution of the corporation. It is a privilege out of step with market ideals, which has led to wealth disparities that threaten our political ideals. We can never really have political democracy without economic democracy".
Marjorie Kelly The Divine Right of Capital

"Democracy is not an outgrowth of free markets. Democracy and capitalism are antagonistic entities... A functioning democracy must often defy the economic interests of elites on behalf of citizens.."
Chris Hedges

"The privatization of public services and functions manifests the steady evolution of corporate power into a political form, into an integral even dominant partner with the state"
Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Inc: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism

Limited liability is at the heart of this rise of corporate power: it constitutes a blanket exemption of a special-interest group from accountability for the actions of their companies. While the mantra of "no rights without responsibilities" is used to regulate the behaviour of poor people who benefit from social-security payments, "the unaccountable few" enjoy feudal privileges"
Stephanie Blankenburg and Dan Plesch

"The economic, political and cultural signs of corporate colonization are increasingly abundant and readily visible in the contours of daily life"
Carl Boggs, The End of Politics

"Adult working Americans are more likely to die young as a result of organized corporate crime than any other form of criminal activity"
Michael Woodiwiss, Gangster Capitalism

"Without doubt corporate power and wealth shape politics today more than ever- in corporation's very growing presence in the economy, their extensive lobbies and influence over legislative activity, their ownership and control of the mass media, their preponderant influence over election campaigns, their capacity to secure relief from regulatory controls, their massive public relations apparatus, their general subsidies to the two parties.."
Carl Boggs The End of Politics

Our Agenda

The Nemesis Project is a Western Australian based civil society project that aims to shed light on everyday examples of corporate power and bring corporations under civil society and citizen control. We aim to highlight the ways that people are affected on a daily basis by corporate power.

We comprise a network of people and groups concerned that corporations and business have become too powerful and dominant within our society. Corporations and business have extended their power and influence into many sectors and aspects of life that should be preserved for the public good.

Corporations now exercise control over most aspects of the economy and society and use their power and money to exert control over the democratic process. In many cases the power and wealth of corporations and business have outgrown the restraints of democracy.

Although there is considerable concern about these issues efforts to address the problems have been limited and when they exist, fragmented. Strategies are needed to explore and structurally challenge the power exercised by corporations and business. The Nemesis project aims to develop an agenda to address the underlying causes of problems generated by corporate power and domination.

This blog is the first step in developing a citizen's agenda to re balance the relationship between corporate power and the power of ordinary Australians.

The Nemesis Project is an initiative of the WA Social Justice Network.

Nemesis Project

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Challenging corporate power requires challenging economic orthodoxy

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