Permaculture San Francisco

Strategic Corporate Initiative
Toward a Global Citizens’ Movement to Bring Corporations Back Under Control

Authors: Michael Marx, Mari Margil -Corporate Ethics International

John Cavanagh, Sarah Anderson, Chuck Collins - Institute for Policy Studies

Charlie Cray - Center for Corporate Policy

Marjorie Kelly - Tellus Institute

There are tectonic stresses building beneath the surface of our society that threaten a global earthquake unlike any we’ve seen in recent history. Global warming is accelerating; fossil fuels are being rapidly exhausted; critical eco-systems have been severely damaged; and the income gap between rich and poor is increasing rapidly. The root cause of most of these problems can be found in the excessive power of global corporations. To solve these problems, we must bring corporations back under our control. This will be one of the greatest challenges our society faces this century.

It is alarming that, despite a long history of successful efforts to change individual corporations, their power has grown so large that the corporate state is now poised to supplant the nation state. Corporations have managed to obtain rights that in essence supersede those of individuals, communities, and even governments. This imbalance of power is a grave threat to democracy and the health of our planet.
The main components of a movement to bring corporations back under citizen control already exist in the U.S. and around the world — including organized labor, environmentalists, religious activists, shareholder activists, students, farmers, consumer advocates, health activists, indigenous and community-based organizations. We have seen these activists in action on the streets of Seattle in 1999,
challenging the World Trade Organization. We have seen them achieve impressive results curbing sweatshop abuses, stigmatizing tobacco, guiding bank lending practices, and protecting millions of acres of forests, to name just a few successes. We have seen the building of new institutions like worker-owned enterprises, cooperatives, and land trusts.

All these movements are advocating for healthy communities, for a moral economy, for the common good. Added together, these various movements possess enormous collective power. Yet the whole is less than the sum of the parts. Despite our many achievements, the gap in power between corporations and democratic forces grows wider each year. If we are to have a chance of closing the gap, our strategies must evolve. We need to challenge ourselves to dream bigger, to speak with one voice across issue sectors, and to act more strategically. The streams of many small movements must flow together into a single river, creating a global movement to bring
corporations back under the control of citizens and their elected governments.

The urgency of the need for unified action is what impelled a small group of organizations to initiate this long-term Strategic Corporate Initiative. We seek to join our voices with others in hopes of sparking a debate among civil society organizations about the need for a unified movement of movements. We believe that, if united, we can be the catalytic force to create a humane, sustainable, democratic society and economy.