Quotes:
Noam Chomsky
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the issues addressed in this thoughtful and well-informed study of modern corporations. A substantial and very timely contribution. -Noam Chomsky

Ralph Nader
In Corporate Nation, Charles Derber goes beyond documenting the megacorporate power that rules America-which was not what America was supposed to become-and presents a unified agenda for a resurgent democracy that should appeal to progressives of many different causes and some conservatives who not corporatists as well. -Ralph Nader

David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World
An invaluable, on-target contribution to redefining the political debate. Corporation Nation provides a depth of data and analysis useful in building a case for change. A guiding beacon for those committed to restoring democracy and economic justice. -David Korten

Senator Edward M. Kennedy
A rising tide should lift all boats. But too often in our modern society, as Charles Derber skillfully points out, millions of Americans are left out or left behind.. Professor Derber's analysis and recommendations should be read and heeded by all who believe that free enterprise can be fair enterprise too. -Edward M. Kennedy

Senator Paul Wellstone
valuable contribution, with concrete proposals for ordinary citizens to effect real change, strengthen our democracy, and reclaim our populist heritage. -Paul Wellstone

>From Booklist
Derber is a Boston College sociology professor who seems always to be in search of connections and grand themes. In The Wilding of America (1996), the most recent of his seven previous books, he compares the teenagers who savagely attacked a Central Park jogger in 1989 to turn-of-the-century robber barons and to those who operate modern-day sweatshops. In Wilding he also anticipated his current attack on corporate America and its abuse of power, calling for a more virtuous capitalism. Now he debunks the "corporate mystique" and shows how corporations unduly direct public policy and affect private lives. But instead of simply decrying corporate excess, Derber sets an agenda for "how to be against corporate power [but] for business." He advocates a global populism and recommends joining in four movements that he says are leading in the fight to "return basic rights from corporations to the citizens to whom they rightly belong." David Rouse --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

>From Kirkus Reviews
Americas in deep troublecorporate oligopoly is seizing our money and stealing our humanity, too. Derber (Sociology/Boston Coll.; Money, Murder and the American Dream, 1992) diagnoses the problem and prescribes a cure. Writing 100 years ago at the height of the Gilded Age, John P. Davis concluded his seminal study, Corporations, by noting that citizenship ``has been largely metamorphosed into membership in corporations and patriotism into fidelity to them.'' Now the situation is no better, claims Derber. He says weve entered another Gilded Age at the turn of a century just as problematic as the last one. His tract compiles complaints against big business and how it blights our lives. Acquiescent politicians, autocratic CEOs, and huge mergers enable corporations to act as a new branch of government, and we confront businesses bigger than nations. The top 200 transnational companies enjoy more income than four fifths of the world's population; their combined income is greater than the combined economies of 182 countries. Corporate plunder thrives; countervailing forces are weak. It's time to rethink what a corporation is supposed to do beyond rewarding shareholders. It's time to fix things. Derber's answer: populism. But not the hayseed, xenophobic populism of William Jennings Bryan, nor the prejudiced populism of Father Coughlin, nor the reactionary populism of Pat Buchanan. Instead, the professors sermon considers and reconsiders what he calls ``positive populism.'' This new version of an old idea is global, embracing labor, grassroots community groups, multiculturalism, and the environmentalist agenda in a broad movement where corporations must serve people, not the reverse. How practical is this? Derber, unsurprisingly, affirms signs of hope; to be fair, his program makes more sense than Bryan's platform ever did. An epilogue offers a few halting first steps. His vibrant polemics cite plausible villains and an implausible solution. It remains to be seen if anyone will follow. -- Copyright (c)1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Ingram
A leading social critic shows how Americans are losing control over their lives--to a hidden government called the corporate system. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

>From the Publisher
In Corporate Nation, Charles Derber goes beyond documenting the megacorporate power that rules America-which was not what America was supposed to become-and presents a unified agenda for a resurgent democracy that should appeal to progressives of many different causes and some conservatives who not corporatists as well.-RALPH NADER
"A rising tide should lift all boats. But too often in our modern society, as Charles Derber skillfully points out, millions of Americans are left out or left behind. Professor Derber's analysis and recommendations should be read and heeded by all who believe that free enterprise can be fair enterprise too."-SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY
"It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the issues addressed in this thoughtful and well-informed study of modern corporations. A substantial and very timely contribution." -NOAM CHOMSKY
"A valuable contribution, with concrete proposals for ordinary citizens to effect real change, strengthen our democracy, and reclaim our populist heritage."-SENATOR PAUL WELLSTONE
"An invaluable, on-target contribution to redefining the political debate. Corporation Nation provides a depth of data and analysis useful in building a case for change. A guiding beacon for those committed to restoring democracy and economic justice."-DAVID KORTEN, author of When Corporations

Rule the World >From the Inside Flap
As Americans we are losing control of our lives--to a hidden government called the corporate system. The gigantic mergers of the late 1990s only confirm the growing trend in the last years of this century: the unchecked power of corporations to alter the way we work, earn, buy, sell, think--the very way we live.

America, charges social critic Charles Derber, is in an era of corporate ascendancy the likes of which we haven't seen since the Gilded Age. The autonomy and power of average Americans are being transferred to vast, unaccountable corporations. Downsizing is rampant. Lines of communication, news and entertainment, jobs, and savings (by the trillions) are increasingly controlled by a handful of global conglomerates--with less and less loyalty to America or its workers. Every day million-dollar CEOs make billion-dollar decisions with little concern for the people whose lives hang in the balance. The result is an American workforce stripped of its financial and emotional security, ever more anxiously dependent on the whim of the corporation.

Yet it doesn't have to be this way, as Derber 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 contemporary Americans regain control of their lives. In clear, straightforward language, free from the rhetoric of left or right, he calls for changes in our corporate system, changes designed to keep corporations healthy (business leaders, take note!) while making them accountable to the people. From rewriting corporate charters to changing our consumer habits, Derber offers new visions for business and empowering strategies by which we all can make a difference.

Eye-opening in its analysis, fresh in its solutions, Corporation Nation offers surprising hope for workers and corporations alike as the new century dawns. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.