« The President Is the Emperor; the CEOs Rule the World »

While reading David Korten’s book, When Empires Rule the World, I had a phone conversation with a friend, Steve Gehring, a corporate attorney in Omaha. When I told him what I was reading, I wasn’t sure how he would respond. But he immediately replied, “Lee, they already do.” He wanted to emphasize that, based on his decades of experience in representing corporations, the “when” in the book title did not refer to a future time of what could happen, but that corporate rule was in effect now. Steve’s opinion added force for me to Korten’s point when Korten writes:

Corporations have emerged as the dominant governance institutions on the planet, with the largest among them reaching into virtually every country of the world and exceeding most governments in size and power. Increasingly, it is the corporate interest rather than the human interest that defines the policy agendas of states and international bodies.”

Before learning of Korten’s book, I had not yet shaken fully free from the notion that politicians and governments are the primary rulers of the world. But the book shattered that notion. What I’d learned in civics class went out the window. I realized that my view may have fit the past, but not the rapidly changing present. Not that I hadn’t been aware of the armies of well-funded corporate lobbyists and the revolving door that sent government leaders into corporations and corporate leaders into governments. But somehow that was not the same as putting corporations and their CEOs on the actual throne of being in charge. The book got me scrambling to catch up with where we are today, not where politicians and news analysts say we are. It was another moment when chunks of my worldview were changing. This chunk was not a minor adjustment. The stars that ruled the world were rearranged in my constellation of who truly were the governing powers.