Missing in action: An economic vision for the "common wealth" not corporate wealth

For US author David Korten the lesson of the US Congressional elections is that financial and corporate interests have strengthened their hold over US politics. Korten argues that no US President or party is willing to break their hold over democracy. The result is that neither party has a credible vision for the economic future of the nation.

Korten argues that the banking and financial industries and their corporate allies are the big winners from the US congressional elections and now hold an even more dominant role over democracy. This is despite the fact that they were the  cause of the economic crises that has devastated the US economy and left over 15 million people unemployed. 

In the latest elections the banking and financial services industry and their corporate allies used their massive spending power to ensure the election of candidates that serve corporate interests.

Korten calls for a fundamental economic restructuring and a long term vision for a New Economy that

• is based on sound market principles
• is rooted in community and life values rather than financial values  and is built from the bottom up
• is accountable to community interests
• is aligned with values of solidarity, compassion and caring for others
• locates the power to create and allocate money in people and community rather than the banking and financial industry
• ensures that sustainable living and sustainable livelihoods for working people are the highest priority of economic policy rather than increased corporate profits, reduced taxation and growing wealth for the already well off.

Ralph Nader and the steamroller of corporate power

"Not withstanding the latest corporate crime wave, the devastating fallout on workers, investors and taxpayers from the greed and corruption of Wall Street, and the abandonment of American workers by US corporations in favour of repressive regimes abroad, the Democrats have failed to focus voter anger on the corporate supremacists.........

The giant corporate control of our country is so vast that people who call themselves anything politically- liberal, conservative, progressive , libertarian, independent or anarchist- should be banding together against the reckless Big Business steamroller"

Ralph Nader, legendary US consumer advocate, lawyer and author on corporate power in the USA

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

The corporate enclosure of sport

John Pilger on the corporate enclosure of sport.

"The pursuit of profit in sport seems unrelenting............................Corporate sport has enriched Rupert Murdoch, corrupted cricket and much of football, subverted numerous other play and appropriated the Olympics and similar spectacles. Its language is that of business schools, PR companies, consultancies and banks. Its “philosophy” is that everything is for sale and monopoly rules.

Event in Fremantle on the harm caused by markets and corporations

Great to see this event The Global Economy and Human Wellbeing  being run by Rob Lambert* at the Edmund Rice Centre for Social Justice in Fremantle this Saturday 4 September, 2010 between 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM.

The event is designed to provide people with a deeper understanding of what global free markets are doing to persons, families and societies;  the nature of corporate restructuring of work, and its social and psychological impacts for families and communities; - basic analytic techniques of ‘political economy’ necessary for understanding these changes; - the values underlying these changes, and how they might be ethically assessed; and - how to envisage (imagine) alternative models of work, and the process of realising such change.

 *Winthrop Professor Rob Lambert is based at the University of Western Australia’s Business School, where he specialises in labour studies. He is co-author of the award-winning book, Grounding Globalization: Labour in the Age of Insecurity (Oxford, Blackwell, 2008),a critique of the free market economy that identifies destructive impacts for the environment, society, families and persons. Rob is the founder and coordinator of the Southern Initiative on Globalization and Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR), founded some 20 years ago. This movement brings together democratic trade unions across 15 countries and four continents in the global south. Rob has a background as a South African activist, and was National Secretary of the South African Young Christian Workers and then advisor to the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference before coming to Perth.