Suiting Themselves: How Corporations Drive The Global Agenda

Labour & Industry, April, 2007 by Tom Stehlik

Sharon Beder, London, Earthscan, 2006, 258 pages, $55 (paperback).

Any book that receives endorsement from the likes of John Pilger and Harold Pinter must have a fair amount of credibility in the field of global politics and corporate activism, and Sharon Beder's latest is at first scan worthy of their accolades.

Although trained as an engineer, Beder most recently has been teaching and researching environmental politics as a professor at the University of Wollongong. The fact that this book is written from an Australian perspective adds to its value for this reviewer and for the field at large. Beder's analysis starts with a definition of the word 'conspire' (collude; act in agreement and in secret towards a harmful deceitful or illegal purpose) and then launches straight into an exploration of the rise of the corporate class at the global level. This begins with the founding of the Business Round Table (BRT) in America in the 1960s which became the model for similar corporate lobby/power groups driven by market agendas and profit motives such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), eventually conspiring with transnational corporations (TNCs) to become more powerful and influential than most nation states in the western world.

Thoroughly researched and backed with solid academic referencing but written in an accessible and readable style, the book goes on to examine corporate influence on policy-making through the powerful agendas of seemingly independent 'think-tanks', the rise of the new right in Australia, and the gradual and insidious influence of free market strategies such as privatisation, deregulation and trade liberalisation on domestic policy. In addition, the book examines the influence of Washington on Australian economic and trade policies; and the general trend from publicly run utilities to privatised services such as power and water which has seen the wholesale selling off of government enterprises to corporations that are more than likely off-shore.

Beder reinforces the argument that, rather than being progressive, these policies have actually resulted in increasing prices and declining services. Despite such obvious consequences, no-one seems to be able to prevent governments from continuing to pursue a relentless path of deregulating and selling off national assets to the free market sector, under the influence of private interests represented by conglomerates and TNCs. In the process, environmental standards are compromised for commercial interests, and long term sustainability is sacrificed for short term gain.

While the book outlines in some detail the historical, sociological and economic developments that have led to this global corporatist vandalism, as well as the adverse effects on the global community as a whole in the short and long term, Beder offers little in the way of strategies, solutions or even hope for the future, leaving the reader feeling rather let down.

The book therefore is true to its subtitle in describing--in thorough detail and with extensive use of primary sources, tables and figures--exactly how corporations drive the global agenda, and as such is a valuable resource for the true student of global conspiracy theories and multinational market monopolisation. The informed reader who thinks globally and would like to act locally however, would need to look elsewhere for clues as to how one could respond at an individual or even organisational level to the rather depressing analysis presented by Beder. And interestingly, despite implying in the main title that the global agenda is being driven by faceless male managerialists in suits, the reader looking for a feminist critique of big business men's clubs and corporate patriarchies will also be disappointed--the author plays it straight. As Harold Pinter observes on the back cover, Beder's analysis is certainly 'comprehensive' but also 'steely and clinical'.

Tom Stehlik--University of South Australia