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Transcript
When Corporations Rule the
World
By David Korten
Master of Business Administration and PhD
Stanford
Group S
Presenters: Michael Martin and Matt Morrison
Researchers: Jeff Lee, Sammy Au, Lu Yu, Tony Wang
Agenda
Summary
Ethical Issues
Critique
Personal Perspective
Possible Improvement
References
Summary
Part 1: Cowboy in a
Spaceship
-Outlines of the argument
-He claims that economic
“growth has done nothing to
reduce the proportion of the
population who live in absolute
poverty;”
Summary
Part 2: Contest for
Sovereignty
-Corporations are becoming
dangerously powerful with no
accountability
-Privatization, deregulation and
free trade are contributors to
globalization
Summary
Part 3: Corporate Colonialism
- Multinational companies are the main
drivers of globalization and are not focused
on human interests
- “The greater the political power of
corporations and those aligned with them,
the less the political power of the people and
the less meaningful democracy becomes.”
Summary
Part 4: A Rogue Financial System
-Money has become delinked from value and has
become almost a pure abstraction.
- “The world’s corporate giants are creating a system of
managed competition by which they actively limit
competition among themselves while encouraging
intensive competition among the smaller firms that
make up their periphery.”
Summary
Part 5: No Place for People
-In the global free market, social
responsibility is not valued.
 In order to attract investment, nations
and communities compete to lower wages
and living standards.
- “It directly creates a world in which social
bonds are destroyed and people and human
values have no place.”
Summary
Part 6: Reclaiming Our Power
-Korten’s solution for globalization
-“The appropriate organizational form for the ecological era is
likely to be a multi-level system of nested economies with the
household as the basic economic unit…… Embodying the
principle of intrinsic responsibility, each level would seek to
function, to the extent that it is reasonably able, as an integrated,
self-reliant, self-managing political, economic, and ecological
community.”
Summary
Main Points:
 Anti-globalization: Globalization has harmful effects on
politics, society, and the environment and giant international
companies have become dangerously powerful.
 The gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow
Ethical Issues-1
 Economic Systems and Justice
 Korten uses an End-State approach to evaluate the current
capitalist system and deems it immoral
 Distributive Justice: The capitalist system in the states has
an uneven dispersion of wealth
Ethical Issues-2
 Corporate social responsibility
 Global corporations exploit workers in developing
countries
 leads to countries losing their sovereignty
 Global corporations tend to lose their focus on
environmental sustainability
Critique
• Capitalism vs. Socialism: Korten has some good basic ideas
for dispersion of wealth but his argument is unrealistic
• Example: Canadian Model, ICBC and BC Hydro
• Without globalization prices would be higher and society
would be worse off
• Globalization helps promote political allegiances through
trade agreements
• Globalization leads to increase in technological advancements
and sharing of resources
Book Evaluation
 Passion for the topic
 Polarizing; people either strongly agree or disagree
 “Bible of anti-globalization”
 Raises ethical questions about our current global capitalist
system
Personal Perspective
 Globalization has some negative ethical qualities but it is
essential to growth in technology and stability in our
economy
 Government regulations could be put in place to put an
emphasis on ethical issues for multinational global
corporations
Possible Improvements
 Korten could consider changes in the current capitalist
system that are not so radical
 Could implement changes such as strict environmental
regulations and fair workers’ compensation
 Korten seems to overlook the fact that using a Utilitarian
approach the benefits of Globalization are greater than the
costs
References
 http://nooventures.edublogs.org/2007-11-04-when-corporations
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
rule-the-world-by-david-korten/
http://livingeconomiesforum.org/
http://www.mapcruzin.com/rev_corp_rule.htm
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/book_review/when_cor
porations_rule_the_world_korten.html
http://deoxy.org/korten_assault.htm
“When Corporations Rule theWorld” by David Korten
Business Ethics by Richard T. DeGeorge
Thank you!