Corporations consumers and citizens must begin acting in concert to create a powerful third pillar of social transformation if we hope to meet the social challenges we currently face with equal force. This begins with corporations that choose to alter how they practice capitalism in two ways to serve the greater good.
Populism is not a style it's a people's rebellion against the iron grip that big corporations have on our country - including our economy government media and environment.
The corporations don't have to lobby the government anymore. They are the government.
Candidly I believe most corporations actually don't mind big government.
Corporations often partner with government after natural disasters as many companies did in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. As a rule however long-term civic/corporate partnerships are still rare .But this need not remain the status quo as many opportunities are available for such partnerships.
You know that big government doesn't hurt big corporations. They've got the best lawyers and accountants in the world. You know who gets destroyed by big government? It's the little guys.
So Indian policy has become institutionalized and the result has been that American people have become more dependent on government and that the American people have become more dependent on corporations.
A corporation's primary goal is to make money. Government's primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give it to others.
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
It is not natural or inevitable that half the world goes hungry that the freedom of markets trumps protection of the planet or that citizens' rights come second to those of corporations.
If you go back to the time of J.P. Morgan the world of high finance was completely wholesale. The prestigious investment banks on Wall Street appealed exclusively to large corporations governments and to extremely wealthy individuals.
We will have bigger bureaucracies bigger labor unions and bigger state-run corporations. It will be harder to be an entrepreneur because of punitive taxes and regulations. The rewards of success will be expropriated for the sake of attaining greater income equality.
Time after time we're told corporations should have freedom from pesky job safety regulations environmental protections and labor standards - giving working people the freedom to be crushed in collapsing mines choke on filthy air and get paid too little to live on.
In every case the environmental hazards were made known only by independent scientists who were often bitterly opposed by the corporations responsible for the hazards.
I am on the board of corporations who contribute both to environmental problems and their solutions. And I am on the NGO side: the Earth Council and other organizations.
After all sustainability means running the global environment - Earth Inc. - like a corporation: with depreciation amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words keeping the asset whole rather than undermining your natural capital.
A black agenda is jobs jobs jobs quality education investment in infrastructure and strong democratic regulation of corporations. The black agenda at its best looks at America from the vantage point of the least of these and asks what's best for all.