Corporation Nation: How Corporations are Taking Over Our Lives -- and What We Can Do About It

Foreword by Ralph Nader. In Corporation Nation Derber addresses the unchecked power of todays corporations to shape the way we work earn buy sell and think―the very way we live. Huge far-reaching mergers are now commonplace downsizing is rampant and our lines of communication news and entertainment media jobs and savings are increasingly controlled by a handful of global―and unaccountable―conglomerates. We are in effect losing our financial and emotional security depending more than ever on the whim of these corporations. But it doesnt have to be this way as this book makes clear. Just as the original Populist movement of the nineteenth century helped dethrone the robber barons Derber contends that a new positive populism can help the U.S. workforce regain its self-control. . Drawing on core sociological concepts and demonstrating the power of the sociological imagination he calls for revisions in our corporate system changes designed to keep corporations healthy while also making them answerable to the people. From rewriting corporate charters to altering consumer habits Derber offers new aims for businesses and empowering strategies by which we all can make a difference.