Corporate power challenges democracy

George Monbiot, in the Guardian on 8th December 2014 wrote: “Does this sometimes feel like a country under enemy occupation? Do you wonder why the demands of so much of the electorate seldom translate into policy? Why the Labour Party, like other former parties of the left, seems incapable of offering effective opposition to market fundamentalism, let alone proposing coherent alternatives? Do you wonder why those who want a kind and decent and just world, in which both human beings and other living creatures are protected, so often appear to find themselves confronting the entire political establishment”.

And in conclusion he wrote: “Corporate power has shut down our imagination, persuading us that there is no alternative to market fundamentalism, and that “market” is a reasonable description of a state-endorsed corporate oligarchy. We have been persuaded that we have power only as consumers, that citizenship is an anachronism, that changing the world is either impossible or best effected by buying a different brand of biscuits. Corporate power now lives within us. Confronting it means shaking off the manacles it has imposed on our minds”.

It strikes me that whilst our conservative governments pay a great deal of attention to other sectors in our society such as Trade Unions and the ‘corruption’ they are accused of waging against the State, they seldom address or in fact raise the spectre of corporate power. We in Australia know only too well that it exists in our mass media and mining companies who hold sway over electors through editorialising and million dollar marketing campaigns to protect their profits and power. 

Our democratic system, governments and courts are overwhelmed by their power and our political parties become beholden to their largesse when it comes to protecting their own power base. And the electorate at large is so intimidated by their messaging and persuaded by their nationalist rhetoric that our politicians are incapable or reluctant to challenge corporate power. It is identified by Monbiot as critical to our capacity and preparedness to address the global and local challenges that confront us, be they economic, social or environmental. 

The Guardian editorial has identified the additional threat to democracy in the form of transnationals that ‘straddle the globe like colossi, beneficiaries of the last century’s turbocharged capitalism’. It reveals that of the top 175 economic entities in the world in 2011, including whole nations, 111 were giant corporates. 

Professor Sikka of Essex University states the obvious yet hardly ever articulated response,  ‘Corporations have no loyalty to any place, people of community’. The editorial headline, ‘Transnationals are mighty, but not beyond government reach. Democracy could still battle back’, reflects there call for action by national and local governments to legislate, regulate and at the local level, ‘name and shame’. 

The Enfield Council in England for example is campaigning to force utilities to give work to local firms and for banks to lend more to local firms with the threat of being named and shamed.  

We need to build community awareness and action to ensure that our leaders are empowered to challenge corporate power and ensure that people come first.
  
http://www.monbiot.com/2014/12/08/there-is-an-alternative/