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How Corporations Hurt Us All- Saving Our Rights, Democracy, Institutions and Our Future

by Dan Butts

244 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0058; ISBN 1-55395-695-8; US$22.00, C$28.95, EUR18.90, £13.10

How Corporations Hurt Us All exposes powerful, billion dollar corporations that violate our rights, corrupt our democracy and institutions, and seriously endanger our future.

There are many remedies and compelling new developments in the corporate reform and global economic democracy movements, and triple and quadruple bottom lines for business and society.

Read more!

about the book      about the author      sample excerpts or Table of Contents      catalogue info

About the Book The recent accounting and corporate scandals of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, K-Mart and McWane (producer of cast iron water and sewer pipes), which has killed 9 workers and injured 4600 more with impunity since 1995- and other greedy and lawless billion dollar behemoths- are just the tip of the iceberg relative to the serious and pervasive harm that corporations and greed are doing to people, communities, the earth and to our children's and grandchildren's future. How Corporations Hurt Us All examines many crises including how Big Oil, billion dollar weapons contractors, and unaccountable private firms like DynCorps are continuing dangerous and immoral Cold War policies by driving multiple wars and military operations; our collapsing corporate health care system that restricts free speech, stifles public debate, and manipulates public opinion to serve narrow corporate and political goals. Some of the world's largest multinational corporations*ExxonMobil(#1 oil company), Wal-Mart (#1 retailer), HCA (#1 hospital conglomerate), Citigroup (the world's #1 financial institution)- and other rogue operations are profiled in the book. The good news is that there are effective approaches to all of these interrelated, greed-driven crises. Even more hopeful are the corporate reform and global economic democracy movements representing thousands of dedicated citizens' groups and millions fo individuals throughout the world. Yet, what is ultimately necessary to reverse global economic, social, and environmental deterioration and eventual collapse, insure world peace and security, strength our weakened civil liberties, and fulfill our human potential, as the book explains, is forging a broad consensus on a new bottom line, or organizing principle, for business and society.

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About the Author Dan Butts is a columnist for Southfield, MI-based phenomeNEWS,a regular contributor to the Ferndale-based Green House News, and a long-time writer on social, political, and global issues who publishes frequent electronic reports and analyses. His Articles have appeared in many periodicals including the Journal of Future Studies, the Journal of Organizational Change Management, and New Renaissance: A Journal for Social and Spiritual Awakening. His work has also appeared in Work & Spirit: A Reader of New Spiritual Paradigms for Organizations. In the 1980s, hr co-founded the Michigan and Metro Detroit Holistic Health Associations and published 4 Michigan Holistic Health Directories. Dan is an active member of The Alliance for Democracy, a speaker at Green House programs, and a supporter of the Michigan Green Party and their 10 key values. He is also a psychologist in private practise and live in Pleasant Ridge, MI, with Cathy Compton and their two cats, Kiki and Earl Grey. To receive free Internet reports, contact dunebutts@aol.com

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Sample Excerpts and Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

In the coming world order, there will be winners and there will be losers.The losers will outnumber the winners by an unimaginable factor.

Jacques Attali, founding president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1991

To an extent unprecedented in recent history, this is a government of, by and for corporate insiders.

Paul Krugman, NY Times business writer and economist, October 22, 2002

In fact what led to the (American) revolution was rage against a transnational corporation that, by the 1760s, dominated trade from China to India to the Carribean, and controlled nearly all commerce to and from North America, with subsidies and special dispensation from the British crown.

Thom Hartmann, author of Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights (2002), in Yes!A Journal of Positive Futures, winter 2003

Corporate scandals, a failing economy, the war on terrorism, and the assault on civil liberties and the Constitution have been the major stories, and the worst crises, of the past year.Yet, there are many more festering social problems, including essential American institutions and public services under attack, that are barely, if at all, part of our national agenda.

How Corporation$ Hurt Us All examines many interrelated crises including how Big Oil and weapons contractors drive war, our collapsing corporate health care system, the corporate threats to safe food and the world food supply, and how big corporate money dictates public policies, undermines democratic elections, and creates a closed media system that restricts free speech, stifles public debate, and manipulates public opinion to serve narrow corporate and political goals.

As a concerned citizen supporting a broad base of citizens' groups in building a true democracy, and a more just, peaceful, and sustainable planet, I've devoted the past decade to more fully understanding the complex forces underlying these multiple and growing crises harming millions of Americans.And, some three billion people living on less than $2 a day in poor nations whose very survival is systematically blocked on several levels including rich nations who pay billions in farm subsidies to wealthy agrochemical conglomerates underselling poor farmers.

Although there are other important contributing factors (and groups sharing some of the blame), the pursuit of wealth and power clearly drive the nation and most of the planet.To insure strong civil liberties, real democracy, healthy public institutions, and world peace - wealth and power must be acquired, applied, and shared within an appropriate moral and ethical framework.

Tragically, however, wealth and power have been dangerously reduced to mere money values and coercive control over and domination of cultures, whole nations, and life itself. And, equally ominous, wealth and power are increasingly concentrated in the hands of corporate, financial, political, and military elites whose overriding goals are, as we see in the aggressive imperialistic policies of the Bush administration (aided by other wealthy nations), limitless wealth and power, and even world domination, whatever the costs to people, the planet, and the future.

The misuse of wealth and power, especially among giant multibillion dollar trans-national corporations like bankrupt Enron and WorldCom, and international financial institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), is a fundamental cause common to the collapsing global economy, our impoverished democracy, and the broad range of interrelated social problems and looming disasters explored in How Corporation$ Hurt Us All.

Global prosperity, peace, and security can only be achieved and sustained when economic systems, corporate priorities, and public policies serve the public interest by meeting basic human needs and sound social goals, including diverse cultures, strong public institutions, and a viable future for our children and grandchildren.

Our individual and collective well-being and destiny depend on how well we use the vast resources that we already have - our cherished democratic ideals of equality, justice, and human dignity for all; our fertile imaginations and practical ingenuity; our willingness to boldly move together in new directions; and our ability to link hands and hearts in creating a nation and world that work for everyone.

Citizen Activism and a New Bottom Line

The good news is that there are fresh and effective approaches to all of the inter-related crises described in this book.Even more hopeful are burgeoning corporate reform and global economic democracy movements representing thousands of citizens' groups and millions of individuals throughout the world who are acting with integrity, compassion, and often great courage in the face of brutal government opposition, in offering ideas and programs that are empowering people, solving common problems, and healing communities and the planet.

The International Forum on Globalization, in Jerry Mander, Debi Barker, and David Korten's Introduction to the report on globalization and poverty mentioned above, stresses that the international system must follow a new set of basic values. "It must truly give higher priority to meeting the needs of the poor rather than providing new luxuries and diversions for the rich... and give priority to rebuilding natural and social capital - the real wealth of society..."

"Ownership and control must be rooted in real people and communities.It means promoting real investment and minimizing financial speculation, and favoring local self-reliance over global dependence... It means replacing global institutions that serve the interests of the global financial elite with institutions that strengthen regional, national and local controls, and hold global financial interests and corporations accountable to democratic values and rules."

Ultimately, however, what's essential to reverse global collapse, insure world peace and security, strengthen our civil liberties, and fulfill our human potential is forging a broad consensus on a new bottom line, or organizing principle, for business and society. As business visionaries Willis Harman and John Hormann proclaimed over a decade ago in their book - Creative Work: The Constructive Role of Business in a Transforming Society (1990) -

"When it no longer makes sense for an economically and technologically successful society to have economic production (and consumption) as its central focus, what then becomes that society's 'central project'? There seems to be only one satisfactory answer: learning and human development, in the broadest possible sense-as end as well as means.Learning about self, health, meaning in life; learning skills to be used in service or productive creation; learning that the potentialities for learning are endless."

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
All Classes Pay a Higher Price, Formidable Challenges & New Priorities
Citizen Activism & a New Bottom Line
Highlights of Worsening Crises & New Approaches

1. THE NEW WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER
Greed, Addictions, Commercialism, Consumerism
Neoliberalism - Deregulation & Privatization
Globalization; Corporate Globalization, Terrorism & Lost Freedom
Benign Globalism
Transnational Corporations & Inherent Rules of Corporate Behavior
Corporate Darwinism/Economic Fundamentalism, Bottom Line Myths

2. THE GLOBAL ECONOMY &U.S./CORPORATE IMPERIALISM
Impoverished Latin American Nations
Brief History of Globalization - Free Trade, Protectionism & Development
Global Economic Institutions - WTO, IMF, World Bank, NAFTA, FTAA & GATS
The New World Order - Structural Adjustment Programs, Destruction of Jobs, Public Health, Food Security & the Environment
Biotechnology - Body Parts, Biopiracy & Life Patents
Neoliberal Failures - Argentina, Russia & South Korea
World Poverty Is Accelerating - International Debt, Microfinance

3. THE GLOBAL WAR MACHINE
Global Weapons Trade - Landmines, Nuclear Madness, Missile Defense
Star Wars Rogue Corporations - Boeing, Lockheed Martin, TRW & Raytheon
Private Mercenary Armies, U.S. War on Colombia & Corporate Profits
Global Security for the 21st Century - Abolishing Nuclear Weapons
Restricting World Arms Trade, New National Priorities & Military Roles
New Definitions of National Security, World Peace Agenda

4. CORPORATE PREDATORS & THE WAR AGAINST WORKERS
Sagging Wages & Class Warfare - Temps, Sweatshops, Downsizing & Future Jobs
Economic Warfare - Disease, Crime, Violence, Economic Trauma & Neo-Fascism
Job Stress - Accidents, Injuries, Assaults & Deaths
Corporate War Against Workers - Plant Closings, Health & Safety Threats
Whistleblowers; Pension, Health Benefits & Bankruptcy Ripoffs
Corporate Predators - Ambition, Greed, Power, Pathology & Destructive Ideologies

5. NATIONAL POVERTY
Poverty Is Getting Worse; Hunger, Homelessness & Poor Health
Welfare Reform Has Failed, Corporate Welfare for Welfare Corporations
Merchants of Misery, Real Costs of Living
"Living Wages" Reduce Poverty, Neo-WPA & Community Service Employment
Grass Roots Movement for Economic Justice

6. THE PRISON - INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Private Prison Expansion = Big Business, Corrections Corporation of America
Corporate Prisons, Politics & Corruption; Privatizing Prisons: A Neoliberal Disaster
Reducing Crime & Restoring Justice, Model Crime Prevention Programs
Model Prisons, Restorative Justice & A New Political Agenda

7. BIG MONEY CORRUPTS DEMOCRACY
Plague of "Dirty Money," How Big Money Is Raised, Profiles in Corruption
Who Are the Donor Class? Corporate Lobbying Perverts Democracy
Corporate Influence Peddling Is Pervasive, The Flaw in Buckley v. Valeo
Campaign Funding & Election Reform - Clean Elections Passes in Several States
2002 Clean Elections Campaigns, Clean Elections Revitalize Democracy
Citizens for Election Reform, Democratic Elections in Canada & Europe
Third Party Reforms Through History

8. THE CORPORATE MEDIA CARTEL
American Media Subverts Democracy, Media Facts
Major Media Players - Viacom (CBS), General Electric (NBC), Disney (ABC) & Murdoch (Fox)
How Media Manipulates the News - Newsfakery
Video News Releases & Virtual Reality
The Public Relations Industry, Commercialization Corrupts the News
Market Values Harm Journalism, Commercial Advertising
Corporate Takeover of PBS & NPR
Democratic, Community-Based Media & Media Reform Proposals

9. HEALTH CARE FOR THE BOTTOM LINE
Human Costs of Profit-Driven Health Care
Massive Waste, Untested, Dangerous Procedures
For-Profit Managed Care - Corporate Greed & Excess Profits
HCA Healthcare & Massive Fraud, Profiteering Damages Care
Doctors & Lawsuits Against HMOs, Health Care Workers Harmed
Mental Health Madness - Fraud, Cutbacks & Patient Abuse
Drug Companies & Psychiatrists, Antidepressant & Antipsychotic Drugs

10. THE CORPORATE DRUG CARTEL
Outrageous Profits; Billions for Marketing, Lobbyists & Politicians
Sales Reps Promote Drugs in Exam Rooms, Top Sales Executive Indicted
High Prices & Monopoly Patents, New Drugs No Better
Billions Wasted on Genetic Research, Unprofitable & Profitable Diseases
Cancer, Politics & Profits - Alternative Cancer Treatments
Commercialism Corrupts Medical Research & Medical Journal Drug Reviews
Dangerous Drugs & Greedy Companies *
Overdosing, Faulty Testing & Dirty Factories, Drug Company Fraud
Drug Companies Injure & Kill Patients, The FDA Protects Industry
Complementary & Alternative Therapies: Non-toxic, Non-invasive & Less Costly National (Public/Private) Health Insurance

11. CORPORATE AGRIBIOTECHNOLOGY
Industrial MegaFarming - Destrucive Subsidies & U.S. Policies
The Cattle Culture, Hog Factories, Slaughterhouses
Toxic Meat, Infectious Diseases, Dangerous Pesticides
Genetically Engineered Food - Is It Safe?
Corporate Profits, Global Control of Food
Genetic Pollution, Super Weeds & Threats to Farmers; Worldwide Resistance
Sustainable Agriculture - Small, Family-Size Farms Work Better
Local Food in a Global Market, A Better Way to Feed the Hungry
Organic & Ecological Farming, World Summit Priorities on Agriculture

12. WATER PRIVATIZATION
The Global Water Crisis - Water Scarcity, Mining, Deforestation & Massive Pollution
The Water Profiteers - The World Bank, IMF, WTO & Transnational Corporations
Profiles of Privatization Disasters - Lost Jobs, Lost Access & Many Losers
Conserving Clean Water - Citizen Activism, Water Rights, Water Protection Principles

13. SOCIAL SECURITY - PRIVATE or PUBLIC?
Hidden Costs of Private Accounts, Private Accounts Reduce Benefits
Social Security Privatization in Other Countries
Bush's Social Security Commission
Strengthening Social Security

14. CORPORATIZED EDUCATION
Commercialism & High-Stakes Testing, Children & Schools Harmed
Corporate Agendas, Resistance, Alternative Measurements
Commercialism Rampant in Schools, Corporate Curricula
Edison For-Profit Schools - Low Scores, Cancelled Contracts & Financial Excesses
The Corporatized University - CEOs, Trustees, Faculty, Research & Think Tanks
Reinventing Education - Rethinking Schools & Paths of Learning
Partnership Education, Montessori & Waldorf Methods
Multiple Minds, Holistic Education & Fully Human Beings

15. CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD
Corporate Power, Corporations Controlled by the United States
Corporate Tax Breaks & Subsidies (i.e., Corporate Welfare)
Economic Development Subsidies Kill Jobs, Export-Import Bank & Lost Jobs
Public Costs of Private Corporations, Beneficial Taxes & Subsidies Corporate MegaMergers
Corporate Environmentalism - Corporate Environmental Law
Environmental Education, Greenwashing & Cyber-surveillance
Foundations & Think Tanks; Wal-Mart, a Predatory Corporation

16. CORPORATE SCANDALS, CRIMES & VIOLENCE
Bribery, Price-Fixing & Fraud, Health Care Fraud/Criminal Mistreatment
Crimes Against Workers, ExxonMobil, GE & Environmental Crimes
Union Carbide, Monsanto & Community Destruction
Corporate Sponsored Terrorism - Shell, Chevron, Texaco, ExxonMobil, Enron & Unocal
Corrupt Financial Institutions - The Enron Nine, Merrill Lynch, Big Accounting, BCCI (megabank)
Citigroup, World's #1 Financial Institution - Illegal Deals with WorldCom & Enron, Predatory Lending
#1 Funder of Environment Destroyers, Foreign Control of Financial Services

17. REFORMING CORPORATIONS
A Brief History, Post-Enron Laws, Sham Pension Reform
Corporate Reform Strategies -
Corporate Compliance with Law on Federal Contracts
Decommodification & Rights to Essential Services
A Code for Corporate Citizenship
Sunshine Standards for Corporate Disclosure
Corporate Charter Revocation
Economic Aristocracy to Economic Democracy
Social Responsibility Amendment
Natural Capitalism, The Next Step in Business
A Global Social & Environmental Charter, The Earth Charter

18. GLOBAL ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY
Worldwide Resistance to Globalization, Citizens' Organizations
Employee-Owned & Green Business
Socially Responsible & Green Investment
Ethical Consumerism, Voluntary Simplicity, Sustainable Communities
Alternative Development Models - New Agenda for the Global Economy
People's Alternatives, 10 Ways to Democratize the Global Economy
Fair Trade Not Free Trade, Interest-free Banking
Successful Large-Scale Populist Movements & Social Democracies

19. VISIONS OF BUSINESS & SOCIETY IN THE 21st CENTURY
Highly Flawed GDP, Social Health & Genuine Progress Indicators
Measuring Community Health
Sarkar's Three-Tiered Economic System
Human Economies, System Design for a Post-Corporate World
Learning Organizations, Fourth Wave Business in the 21st Century
Triple & Quadruple Bottom Lines - Profit, Planet, Person & Psyche (Full Human Development)

REFERENCES

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Catalogue Information

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