Have we (re)discovered Susan George in time . . . . .?

[Oscar]

Have we (re)discovered Susan George in time . . . . .?

WATCH: Susan George looks back at her four decades of scholarship to explain what led her to write her different books, how it formed her vision of power and the best ways to challenge the Davos class in order to deliver a more just world.

[ https://zcomm.org/zvideo/power-at-stake/ ]


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Who Are the DAVOS Class? – June 4, 2015

[ http://davosclass.tni.org/ ]

The Davos class, despite its members' nice manners and well-tailored clothes, is predatory . . . . They run our major institutions, including the media, know exactly want they want and are much more united and better organized than we are. But this dominate class has weaknesses too; one is it has an ideology but virtually no ideas and no imagination. - Susan George


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Corporations, Not People, Have Been Made Stakeholders in the New Global Order - Dec. 6, 2015

[ http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepic ... obal-order ]

Ellen Davidson / Backbone Campaign)

Mark Karlin, Truthout: Susan George, author of Shadow Sovereigns, discusses the rise of corporate personhood on a global scale, the prospect of governments derailing the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement and how transnational corporations, especially energy firms, are holding the planet's residents hostage.

EXCERPT:

Transnational corporations are demanding the right to what they call "competitiveness": lower taxes, control over lawmaking and the right to sue governments for affecting profits. In her new book, Shadow Sovereigns: How Global Corporations Are Seizing Power, Susan George shines a light on the secret corporate coalitions that are influencing critical government decisions and posing a direct threat to democracy. The following is a Truthout interview with Susan George, author of Shadow Sovereigns.

Mark Karlin: How are corporations taking upon themselves the role of nations as "shadow sovereigns"?

Susan George: Corporations have no desire or need to govern directly - plenty of cooperative politicians or civil servants are prepared to do that. They do, however, want to define the structures, oversee the legislation and make sure that those who govern are always mindful of their wishes. This can be done with money to elect the "right" people (especially in the United States), and through lobbies, super-lobbies that represent entire industries rather than just individual corporations and institutions, such as the US Chamber of Commerce and BusinessEurope that prepare the negotiations of international treaties. Lewis Powell - later a Supreme Court justice - could in 1971 accurately state in a report for the US Chamber of Commerce that "few elements of American society have as little influence in government as the American businessman." Those days are truly long gone! MORE: . . . .


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The Rise of the Illegitimate Authority of Transnational Corporations - December 3, 2015

[ http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepic ... rporations ]

By Susan George, Polity Books | Book Excerpt

Transnational corporations are demanding the right to what they call "competitiveness": lower taxes, control over lawmaking, and the right to sue governments for affecting profits. In her new book, Shadow Sovereigns: How Global Corporations are Seizing Power, Susan George shines a light on the secret corporate coalitions that are influencing critical government decisions and posing a direct threat to democracy. The following is an excerpt from the introduction to Shadow Sovereigns: How Global Corporations are Seizing Power:


EXCERPT:

Since the onset of neoliberal politics at the beginning of the 1980s, which accelerated at the end of the Cold War in 1991 when the Soviet Union disappeared, the number of (transnationals) TNCs has soared. Globalization has given wings to the giant corporations and helped them to create their own meta-organizations to deal with particular world spheres such as trade and the environ­ment. Other outgrowths are both 'meta' - above or beyond in Greek - and 'mega' - great or powerful - such as the World Economic Forum (WEF), better known by the name of the Swiss skiing resort where since 1971 it has met yearly: Davos. The growing ambition of the Davos cluster of organizations can be simply defined: to run the world.

I call the WEF habitués the 'Davos Class' because they constitute a genuine social class with the usual attributes expected thereof. The people that make up this class are thus international and nomadic, but they are also a recognizable tribe with their own codes and markers. They have their own languages, not just their native one plus corporatese, but also fluent English. They attended the same or similar universities and business schools, send their children to the same or similar private schools, favor their own watering holes and vacation spots, possess upscale homes in various sophisticated world-class cities, frequent the same meetings (with Davos a must), develop comparable corporate cultures and, of course, have plenty of money.

They are also replaceable - if the man you met in Davos last year is not there this year, then he is no longer President of Bank X or Board Chair of Corporation Y. About 85 per cent of the Davos denizens come from corporations and banks - most of the rest are politicians and there is a smattering of trade unionists, a few acceptable, non-wave-making NGO (nongov­ernmental organization) people and, for glamour, the occasional movie star.

Unless and until proven wrong, I don't believe in conspira­cies, but I definitely believe in interests - and that readers are fully capable of distinguishing between the two. A paranoid tale of conspiracy and a factual description of growing corporate power are quite different, even though the latter's signs are all around us and may be difficult to discern for the average person. I hope to provide some clues in these pages. One could write volumes about the TNCs, and the volume of information, alas, grows daily. My goal here is to open the door, not to visit every nook and cranny of the enormous transnational power house.

Before we enter, it's perhaps useful to speak a little about politics in the broadest sense. My chosen subtitle was to have been 'The Rise of Illegitimate Authority,' and it's only honest to devote part of this introduction to my motivations and the politics I hope to defend through a factual description of what the TNCs are up to. Like virtually all my work, this book is about power - who has it, how they use it and to what ends. The power of the TNCs is grounded in the spoken or unspo­ken ideology known as neoliberalism which is itself profoundly anti-democratic. I want to spell this out and will make some brief distinctions between which authority is legitimate and democratic and which isn't. These may seem obvious, but are also often hidden. Readers will already be well aware of the principles involved.

Then I'll explain why I believe that evidence shows illegiti­mate authority to be on the rise and democracy to be in serious danger of succumbing to the neoliberal disease. This book con­cerns the United States and Europe because that is where the great majority of corporations are headquartered and because Westerners live where this ideology is most entrenched. We are confronted by a battle between two models of thought and behavior. Now we have reached the point where we must choose between the Enlightenment heritage developed since the eighteenth century, on the one hand, and, on the other, what I see as the Great Neoliberal Regression. The Enlightenment tradition is losing, and since I've dealt with this subject more thoroughly in earlier work, this description will be short.

The rest of the book will provide concrete examples of how the functions of legitimate government are progressively being taken over by illegitimate, unelected, opaque agents and organizations. Here the list is constantly lengthening.

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Susan George

Susan George is the author of 15 books written in French and English and widely translated. She is president of the Board of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, a decentralized fellowship of scholars living throughout the world whose work is intended to contribute to social justice and who are active in civil society in their own countries. She is also honorary president of Association for Taxation of Financial Transaction to Aid Citizens of France where she also served as vice-president between 1999 and mid-2006 and remains a member of the scientific council.


Related Stories

Corporate Triumphs, Progressive Victories and the Roadmap for a Democratic Revival - By Peter Dreier, Moyers & Company | News Analysis - November 2014
[ http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/2728 ... ic-revival ]

Corporations Push for Giant Repatriation Tax Giveaway - By Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future | Op-Ed - July 2015
[ http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/3 ... rporations ]

Corporate Tribunals Pose Biggest Hurdle to Europe's Vote on Transatlantic Trade Pact - By Tom Lawson, Occupy.com | News Analysis - August 2015
[ http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3218 ... trade-pact ]


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WATCH: Shadow Sovereigns: Susan George – October 8, 2015

[ https://www.tni.org/en/article/shadow-s ... san-george ]

Renowned scholar activist Susan George introduces her new book, Shadow Sovereigns - How Global Corporations are seizing power.
Authors - Susan George Projects - Corporate Power
She explains how corporations have taken over all branches of the government as well as international governance, in particular through trade treaties such as the proposed EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

State of Power
[ https://www.tni.org/en/collection/state-of-power ]

Davos
[ https://www.tni.org/en/search?f[0]=tags%3A29 ]

IMF/World Bank
[ https://www.tni.org/en/search?f[0]=tags%3A370&f[1]=language%3Aen ]


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WATCH: Filmmaker Philippe Diaz on "The End of Poverty?" – November 10, 2009 – ( includes a Susan George clip)

[ http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/10/ ... on_the_end ]

Earlier this year, the IMF and the World Bank warned that the financial crisis posed a serious challenge to reducing poverty. The World Bank predicted that the economic crisis could push another 53 million people in the global South into poverty. Well, according to the latest numbers from the United Nations, we’re now up to 2.7 billion people around the world who survive on less than two dollars a day, one billion of whom live on less than a dollar a day. Given the dire statistics and the widening gap between the rich and the poor, how can we see the eradication of poverty?

That’s the central question of a new documentary called The End of Poverty? [includes rush transcript]

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The End of Poverty? is a 2008 documentary film about poverty directed by Philippe Diaz. It is narrated by Martin Sheen and was produced by Cinema Libre Studio in association with the non-profit Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. The film was selected for the international critic's week award at the 2008 Cannes Festival.