Sharon Beder should be declared a National Treasure and we should be listening to her rather than to corporate advocates like Bernard Salt. Today, as Victorians go to demonstrate against the assault on democracy of a government which is almost impossible to differentiate from the corporate developer lobby, her words help us to understand our predicament.
Her blog, with many articles like the one cited below is here:http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/sbeder/
A Revolutionary shift from democracy to corporate rule ...
"The revolutionary shift that we are witnessing at the beginning of the 21st Century from democracy to corporate rule is as significant as the shift from monarchy to democracy, which ushered in the modern age of nation states. It represents a wholesale change in cultural values and aspirations.
This eclipse of democratic values by corporate values is not a natural evolution but the consequence of a deliberate strategy employed by corporate executives who have combined their financial and political resources to spread free market ideology. Corporations, individually and in concert, have utilised all the major communication institutions of a modern society – including the media and education – to shape community beliefs, values and behaviour. This has enabled corporations ‘to enthral and becloud the understanding’ of large numbers of citizens so that it is commonly believed that large corporations are benevolent institutions that should be minimally regulated because what is good for them is good for society as a whole."
More here, in "The Corporate Assault on Democracy" by Sharon Beder.
Beder is also the author of multiple environmental politics books.
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