The multinational corporation is the most powerful institution of our time,
dominating not only global economics, but politics and culture as well. The
enormous influence of the corporation notwithstanding, the mechanisms of
corporate control and the details of corporate abuses remain largely hidden
from public perception.
 The purpose of the column "Focus on the Corporation" is be to rectify this
informational shortcoming, to report and comment critically on corporate
actions and plans, from particularized abuses to broad trends. Written with a
sharp edge and occasional irreverency, the Mokhiber-Weissman column
covers:
- The double standards which excuse corporations for behavior (e.g., causing
injury, accepting welfare) widely considered criminal or shameful when done by
individuals;
- Globalization and corporate power;
- Trends in corporate economic blackmail, political influence and workplace
organization;
- Industry-wide efforts to escape regulation, silence critics, employ new
technologies or consolidate business among a few companies;
- Specific, extreme examples of corporate abuses: destruction of communities,
trampling of democracy, poisoning of air and water;
- Particular issues, such as tort reform, of across-the-board interest to
business; and
- The corporatization of our culture.
Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman are uniquely well positioned to author
such a column. Mokhiber, one of the nation's leading authorities on corporate
crime, is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter, a legal weekly, and the
author of Corporate Crime and Violence: Big Business Power and the Abuse of the
Public Trust. Weissman is the editor of Multinational Monitor, the leading
source of critical reporting on corporate power. Mokhiber and Weissman have
published articles on corporate power in numerous newspapers, magazines,
journals and books.
|
|