Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
He also clearly argues that 'ecological truths can be introduced without fuss into
economic reasoning' (Dasgupta, 2007: 11). The only problem is getting economists
to embrace it.
Development is a cultural and economic process, leading many environmentalists
and ecologists to look to indigenous cultures and values as a model for sustainability,
but many of these are, in fact, hybrid cultures, having evolved in relationship to
dominant Western economic and scientific paradigms (Agrawal, 1995; Escobar,
1995). The co-evolution of societies and cultures, and of society with nature, has
caused a 'metabolic rift' in the relations between humans and nature. The universal
transformation of societies and nature
is
a major feature of capitalism.
Do corporations rule the world?
A great deal of the anti-globalization market is also anti-corporate, and those who
campaign for deglobalization, localization and eco-localism frequently argue that
the corporation, far from being a potential vehicle for sustainable development, is
irredeemably a barrier. David C. Korten, whose topics
When Corporations Rule
the World
(1995) and
The Post-Corporate World: Life after Capitalism
(1999) have
been widely discussed by environmentalists, suggests that trans and multi-national
corporations actually prevent the market - which would, other things being equal,
enable more sustainable economies to emerge - from functioning in a healthy fashion.
Most megacorporations are grossly inefficient. Firms should be human scale and
competition should not eradicate the weak. There should be economic democracy
based on stakeholder ownership, economic relations should be managed locally or
nationally, and effective international agreements should regulate financial speculation
as well as the activities of the corporations. A healthy market must rest on firm
ethical foundations, and one major step towards realizing this is to end the legal
fiction that corporations are 'persons', as they have more rights than actual persons
but fewer legal, financial and moral obligations and fewer liabilities. For Korten
(2000), the corporation is a legal perversion allowing for a massive accumulation
of financial and economic power with the minimum of social accountability.
Corporations employ millions of poorly paid workers in all parts of the world and
are frequently in receipt of massive government subsidies. Only shareholders are
legally entitled to benefit directly from the surpluses and profits the corporations
produce, and in order to ensure the interests of shareholders are met, the needs of
individual workers and whole communities are sometimes sacrificed. Capital needs
to be mobile - 'footloose' - to secure the lowest possible production and labour
costs. Korten also notes that corporations bankroll political campaigns in order to
protect their interests and gain favour, so as to call in favours when required.
Organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO) were established specifically
to serve global corporate interests, even if these run contrary to the policies and
needs of democratically elected governments and their people. The WTO has given
corporations considerable operational freedom, which, combined with their power
and size, frequently makes it very difficult for smaller businesses to develop. This
has been no accident: as Beder (2006) demonstrates in her surgically precise analysis
of global corporate politics,
Suiting Themselves: How Corporations Drive the Global
Agenda
, through their creation of think-tanks and business associations, the big
corporations have intentionally shaped the global economic agenda to meet their
