Taming the Commercial, Empowering the Communal




Taming the Commercial, Empowering the Communalr

“We need to focus less on symptoms of corporate abuse and more on the underlying cause–excessive corporate power. We must recognize that ultimately our struggle is for power. It is not just to make corporations more responsible, but to make them our servants, in much the same way that elected officials are public servants.”

“We need what the movement now lacks: a coherent vision of the role we want corporations to play in our society and a strategy for achieving that vision. It’s about putting We the People back in charge of our future, rather than the robotic behemoths that set their sights on short-term growth and high profits, regardless of the consequences.”

“Imagine… Responsible companies protect the environment as though there is a tomorrow, and they view worker knowledge and company’s reputation in the communities where they operate as their greatest assets.”

 

In this article by Michael Marx and Marjorie Kelly, the roots of many of societal and environmental illth is pointed at the excessive power of corporations. Their analysis of the situation made clear that it is we that had recklessly given that power, and only we can take it back and bring corporations back in the service of public good.

To do that, three major strategic tracks were highlighted in the article:

  1. We need to restore democracy and rebuild countervailing forces that can control corporate power.
  2. We need to severely restrain the realms in which for-profit corporations operate.
  3. We need to redesign the corporation itself, as well as the market system in which corporations operate.

They also speak of how a global citizens’ movement operating under a coherent strategy can bring corporations back under control within 20 years.

Read the full article at YES! Magazine >>

 

Related readings

  1. Commerce, Culture and Nature – a Clash of Chronologies by Paul Hawken
  2. Corporate Design: The Missing Business and Public Policy Issue of Our Time by Marjorie Kelly and Allen White
  3. The Urgent Need to Redesign Corporation by Wibowo Sulistio
  4. Toward a Global Citizens’ Movement to Bring Corporations Back Under Control by the Strategic Corporate Initiative (SCI)
  5. 7 Cool Companies: The Best Alternatives to Corporate Power by Gar Alperovitz and Steve Dubb & Ted Howard
  6. B Corporations: a community of for-Benefits corporations

(Image by B Tal. Some rights reserved.)


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