Corporation Nation

We must take up a ""positive populism"" to defend society against corporations, while at the same time protecting the health of business, argues Boston College sociologist Derber (The Wilding of America). Derber begins with a useful, somewhat polemical survey of growing corporate power, synthesizing and critiquing thinkers such as William Greider and John Kenneth Galbraith and occasionally being unable to resist calling the replacement of workers with contractors ""job genocide."" He reminds us that seemingly private corporations are actually quite dependent, relying on government for subsidies, infrastructure and trade law, and suggests that strengthened unions can help narrow national income gaps. He warns, however, that the current trend toward corporate ""social responsibility"" distracts from the need for government policies and proposes a move toward the German-style stakeholder corporation in which workers and community representatives have a voice in governance; he calls for all corporations over $1 billion to be ""public corporations,"" required to ""serve clear public needs."" Change, Derber suggests, might be effected by the labor movement in collaboration with civic groups, multiculturalists and environmentalists. Derber is genuinely engaged; generally even-handed, this is a necessary critique. (Nov.)