Quotations

by David Korten

from his book

When Corporations Rule the World

The systemic forces nurturing the growth and dominance of global corporations are at the heart of the current human dilemma ... to avoid collective catastrophe we must radically transform the underlying system of business to restore power to the small and local.

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As we continued our discussion over the next few days, the pieces began to fall into place. The Western scientific vision of a mechanical universe has created a philosophical or conceptual alienation from our own inherent spiritual nature. This has been reinforced in our daily lives by the increasing alignment of our institutions with the monetary values of the marketplace. The more dominant money has become in our lives, the less place there has been for any sense of the spiritual bond that is the foundation of community and a balanced relationship with nature. The pursuit of spiritual fulfillment has been increasingly displaced by an all-consuming and increasingly self-destructive obsession with the pursuit of money-a useful but wholly substanceless and intrinsically valueless human artifact.

It seemed evident from our analysis that to reestablish a sustainable relationship to the living earth, we must break free of the illusions of the world of money, rediscover spiritual meaning in our lives, and root our economic institutions in place and community so that they are integrally connected to people and life. Consequently, we concluded that the task of people-centered development in its fullest sense must be the creation of life-centered societies in which the economy is but one of the instruments of good living-not the purpose of human existence. Because our leaders are entrapped in the myths and the reward systems of the institutions they head, the leadership in this creative process of institutional and value re-creation must come from within civil society.

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From our vantage point in Asia we have watched in horror as the same policies the United States has been advocating for the world have created a Third World within its own borders as revealed in its growing gap between rich and poor, dependence on foreign debt, deteriorating educational systems, rising infant mortality, economic dependence on the export of primary commodities-including its last remaining primary forests-indiscriminate dumping of toxic wastes, and the breakdown of families and communities.

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I share the liberal's compassion for the disenfranchised, commitment to equity, and concern for the environment and believe that there are essential roles for government and limits to the rights of private property. I believe, however, that big government can be as unaccountable and destructive of societal values as can big business. Indeed, I have a distrust of any organization that accumulates and concentrates massive power beyond the bounds of accountability. In short, I align with those who are defining a new path that is more pragmatic than ideological and who cannot be easily pigeonholed within the conventional conservative-liberal spectrum of political choice.

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... the systemic forces nurturing the growth and dominance of global corporations are at the heart of the current human dilemma. I now believe that to avoid collective catastrophe we must radically transform the underlying system of business to restore power to the small and local. I further believe that accomplishing the needed transformation will require the cooperative efforts of those within the system-including those who head our major corporations and financial institutions-in addition to the efforts of citizen movements working from outside it.

With regard to spiritual values, I was raised in the Protestant Christian faith but find wisdom in the teachings of all the great religions. I believe that we have access to an inner spiritual wisdom and that our collective salvation as a species depends, in part, on tapping into this wisdom from which the institutions of modern science, the market, and even religion have deeply alienated us. Through this rediscovery we may achieve the creative balance between market and community, science and religion, and money and spirit that is essential to the creation and maintenance of healthy human societies.

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... we are experiencing accelerating social and environmental disintegration in nearly every country of the world-as revealed by a rise in poverty, unemployment, inequality, violent crime, failing families, and environmental de~dation. These problems stem in part from a fivefold increase in economic output since 1950 that has gushed human demands on the ecosystem beyond what the planet is capahle of sustaining. The continued quest for economic growth as the organizing principle of public policy is acceleratin.g the breakdown of the ecosystem s regenerative capacities and the social fabric that sustains human community; at the same time, it is intensifying the competition for resources between rich and poor-a competition that the poor invariably lose.

Governments seem wholly incapable of responding, and public frustration is turning to rage. It is more than a failure of government bureaucracies, however. It is a crisis of governance born of a convergence of ideological, political, and technological forces behind a process of economic globalization that is shifting power away from governments responsible for the public good and toward a handful of corporations and financial institutions driven by a single imperative-the quest for short-term financial gain. This has concentrated massive economic and political power in the hands of an elite few whose absolute share of the products of a declining pool of natural wealth continues to increase at a substantial rate-thus reassuring them that the system is working perfectly well.

Those who bear the costs of the system's dysfunctions have been stripped of decision-making power and are held in a state of confusion regarding the cause of their distress by corporate-dominated media that incessantly bombard them with interpretations of the resulting crisis based on the perceptions of the power holders An active propaganda machinery controlled bv the world's largest corporations constantly reassures us that consumerism is the path to happiness, governmental restraint of market excess is the cause our distress, and economic globalization is both a historical inevitability and a boon to the human species. In fact, these are all myths propagated to justify profligate greed and mask the extent to which the global transformation of human institutions is a consequence of the sophisticated, wellfunded, and intentional interventions of a small elite whose money enables them to live in a world of illusion apart from the rest of humanity.

These forces have transformed once beneficial corporations and financial institutions into instruments of a market tyranny that is extending its reach across the planet like a cancer, colonizing ever more of the planet's living spaces, destroying livelihoods, displacing people, rendering democratic institutions impotent, and feedin on life in an insatiable quest for money. As our economic system has detached from place and gained greater dominance over our democratic institutions, even the world's most powerful corporations have become captives of the forces of a globalized financial system that has delinked the creation of money from the creation of real wealth and rewards extractive over productive investment. The big winners are the corporate raiders who strip sound companies of their assets for short-term gain and the speculators who capitalize on market volatility to extract a private tax from those who are engaged in productive work and investment.

Faced with pressures to produce greater short-term returns, the world's largest corporations are downsizing to shed people and functions. They are not, however, becoming less powerful. While tightening their control over markets and technology through mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances, they are forcing both subcontractors and local communities into a standards-lowering competition with one another to obtain the market access and jobs that global corporations control. The related market forces are deepenmg our dependence on socially and environmentally destructive technologies that sacrifice our physical, social, environmental, and mental health to corporate profits.

The problem is not business or the market per se but a badly corrupted global economic system that is gyrating far beyond human control. The dynamics of this system have become so powerful and perverse that it is becoming increasingly difficult for corporate managers to manage in the public interest, no matter how strong their moral values and commitment.

Driven by the imperative to replicate money, the system treats people as a source of inefficiency and is rapidly shedding them at all system levels. As the first industrial revolution reduced dependence on human muscle, the information revolution is reducing dependence on our eyes, ears, and brains. The first industrial revolution dealt with the resulting unemployment by colonizing weaker peoples and sending surplus populations off as migrants to less populated lands. People in colonized countries fell back on traditional social structures to sustain themselves. With the world's physical frontiers largely exhausted and social economies greatly weakened by market intrusion, few such safety valves remain. Consequently, the redundant now end up as victims of starvation and violence, homeless beggars, welfare recipients, or residents of refugee camps. Continuing on our present course will almost certainly lead to accelerating social and environmental disintegration.

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When Corporations Rule the World