At the P&P Summer Gathering in July 2008, students explored the legal, economic, political and cultural power of corporations, and ways to challenge this power. You can find their ideas here.
Dismantle corporate power with the new Corporate Power campaign.
Legal Power
CHALLENGE IT
- Challenge corporations on existing legal grounds, including international human rights law.
- Promote increased corporate responsibility legislation.
- Get rid of the legal personhood of corporations and of limited liability.
- Mobilise trade unions and other pro-worker, pro-ethics pressure groups.
- Repeatedly perform citizen arrests on corporate criminals.
- Increase legal support for victims of corporate abuse.
- Call for increased openness and transparency in lobbying.
Revolution or Reform? You decide.
- Corporate might and resources influence governmental decisions about laws and regulation.
- Companies cross borders more easily than people, creating a regulatory race to the bottom.
- Critical lack of effective, binding international regulation.
- National laws cannot control multinational corporations, as they simply outsource to places with less strict or poorly enforced regulations.
- Corporations have the might to resist legal challenges, whilst mounting fierce legal attacks of their own.
- Status as employers enables corporations to draw up unfair employment contracts.
- Corporations are difficult to sue because of limited liability.
- Powerful doctrine of private property.
Economic Power
CHALLENGE IT
- Highlight current problems in the world markets to expose the giant cracks in free market ideology.
- Increase corporation tax and stop tax evasion by closing loopholes and ending tax havens.
- Show solidarity with workers worldwide through strike actions.
- Use the power of consumer boycotts , supported and promoted by trade unions.
- Push for international laws guaranteeing workers a living wage.
- Ensure the decentralisation of production.
- Challenge privatisation.
- Promote investment in ethical rather than cheap products using consumer power.
- Influence shareholders to turnaround the purpose of corporations.
- Broaden the appeal of Fairtrade, highlighting workers’ rights and the importance of workers organising in co-operatives.
Revolution or Reform? You decide.
- Corporations are bolstered by the neo-liberal economic policies of the Washington Consensus, including the promotion of privatisation.
- Corporations are cunning tax dodgers.
- Corporations can set economic trends, including the imposition of liberalisation and privatisation policies on developing economies.
- Corporations own the majority of the world’s productive forces.
- New capital investment is in private hands, not democratically controlled.
- Corporate monopolies lead to price-setting.
- Low wages are perpetuated by absolute control of the supply chain.
- Economic power of corporations influences the law in all sorts of areas, from land prices to low taxes.
Political Power
CHALLENGE IT
- Support public ownership and co-operatives.
- Expose relationships between corporations and governments.
- Challenge corporate tax situation by exercising our vote.
- Regulate the lobbying ability of corporations and reform party funding.
- Encourage mass direct action.
- Use consumer power to make it politically sound to be a responsible company.
- Increase transparency of public affairs.
- Challenge the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).
- REVOLUTION!
Revolution or Reform? You decide.
- Corporate lobbying helps set unfair trade rules at the WTO and advances the privatisation agenda.
- Corporations are guilty of undermining democracy in countries that they work in.
- Politicians are heavily influenced by massively powerful corporate lobbyists.
- Government and the public are influenced by the corporate-controlled mass media.
- Corporations finance politicians’ election campaigns.
- Political interests may lead to military/mercenary contracts.
- A country’s success is measured in GDP and economic terms, making corporations powerful political players.
Cultural Power
CHALLENGE IT
- Expose corporate control of university funding and research and the uses it’s put to.
- Lobby for laws to keep corporations out of educational and cultural institutions.
- Regulate corporate sponsorship and prevent media monopolies.
- Avoid corporate sponsorship and protest against it through subvertising.
- Create our own culture: promote independent labels, radical theatre, creative commons, counter-culture, communal values…
- Support communal values.
- Sabotage corporations’ branding and operations.
- Build the cultural and political capacity to support local ventures and produce.
Revolution or Reform? You decide.
- Dominant corporate economic mindset, whereby people are indoctrinated to measured happiness and success by wealth.
- Corporations create demand by telling us what we want, using persuasive and manipulative imagery and emotive techniques.
- Brands and trends become inescapable must-haves for many people.
- Corporate involvement in the education sector influences curriculum and research.
- Corporations have a massive influence on cultural life, which is often dependent on funding.
- Corporations take advantage of globalisation and tend towards cultural homogenisation.
- Corporations claim the right to free speech but stop people speaking out against them.