There's no business like it

I drove up into the wintry North today--to my parents' house for the Chrimmastime. I brought along with me a small library of books that were gathering dust in my apartment, to gather dust in an out of the way corner here. I had a moment of regret that no practical use would come of one book, The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy, by Lee Drutman and Charlie Cray (with forward by Mr. R. Nader hisownself).

I was an enthusiastic reader of The People's Business (second subtitle: The Report of the Citizen Works Corporate Reform Commission).

Hold that thought...I am to understand that shrimp has been made available downstairs, where the people is at. Time for a holiday break. I will edit this post and finish my dry story a little later.

So, anyway, I thought the book's objectives are really important. And I was largely disappointed by it, for a lot of reasons. I don't think it's written in a very readable way, or with any sense of proportianality--the attention dedicated the different subjects doesn't match up with their significance.

But the worst part is that it is billed as offering constructive things you can do to reassert populist democratic sovereignty over mammoth avaricous private tyrannies...and I guess there's a list of things you can do...if you happen to be a policymaker. Legislators maybe could act directly on their suggestions, but they don't really offer a program for regular people. I thought maybe there'd be something in there about citizen lobbying, or political organizing, or something.

They do, at one point, tackle a contentious topic along those lines: Nader's presidential candidacies. The goal of Citizen Works was to gather together the energies of a broad coalition of corporate reformers to focus on the underlying questions of corporate power in society as opposed to reacting after the fact to specific abuses. And they gathered a diverse group with very different opinions on the efficacy of Nader's strategy. The book totally cops out on this question. I guess they wanted everyone to get along, but they totally slide past the issue with a sort of pluralistic "we should all do things our own way" attitude. This only exacerbates the book's problems with living up to its promise of offering a course of action for people who get all hot and bothered by the abuses dutifully described.

Anyway, yeah, reign in corporate power. Maybe read the book. It didn't grab me, and so I'm leaving it to lie forgotten in a corner.