Sharon Beder, 'Free Market Missionaries: The Corporate Manipulation of Community Values', Earthscan, London, 2006, 260pp.

Sharon Beder, 'Suiting Themselves: How Corporations Drive the Global Agenda', Earthscan, London, 2006, 258pp.

In the early 1930s the heads of some of the largest US corporations started meeting regularly for dinner in New York. It was during the Great Depression when public confidence in capitalism was at an all time low and Roosevelt was threatening to regulate corporations and curb their power. The group, calling themselves the 'Brass Hats', oversaw the corporate takeover of the National Manufacturers Association (NAM), and turned it into a propaganda vehicle for big business.

NAM's conversion marked an historical turning point. Until this time, business people had used advertising, public relations and lobbying to sell their products and services, to promote individual companies, industries, or political views such as their preference for private ownership of public services. But they had never teamed up to sell business values as the primary guiding principles for a nation. Now companies that were supposed to be competitors colluded in a united effort to spread the 'free' market message to the public using every available public relations avenue.

This was the first of several mass propaganda campaigns conducted by business associations and coalitions that combined public relations techniques developed in 20th Century America with revitalised free market ideology originating in 18th Century Europe. The aim was to persuade people that it was in their interests to eschew their own power as workers and citizens, and forego their democratic power to restrain and regulate business activity.

The second major 'free enterprise' campaign occurred in the immediate post war period, key business organisations were concerned about government intervention and controls on the one hand, and union activity on the other — Big Government and Big Labour. What followed was 'the most intensive "sales" campaign in the history of the industry' according to Daniel Bell, then editor of Fortune magazine. What was being sold was market dogma, and the full weight of business resources were poured into it.

During the early 1970s business was again under attack and public interest groups were challenging the authority of business and seeking government controls over business activities. The first-wave of modern environmentalists were blaming development and the growth of industrial activities for environmental degradation. Their warnings were capturing popular attention, resonating as they did with the experiences of communities facing obvious pollution in their neighbourhoods. Worst of all, from a business point of view, governments were responding with new environmental legislation.

In the US the Advertising Council launched a major campaign in 1976 to promote free enterprise. It was supported by so many major corporations that the Council boasted the list of supporters read like a 'who's who in American business'. The continuous campaign in favour of free enterprise has been described as 'the most elaborate and costly public-relations project in American history.'

In Australia, after the election of a 'progressive' Labor government in 1972, the Australian Chamber of Commerce reacted with a nationwide 'economic education campaign' to promote free enterprise. Enterprise Australia was set up in 1976. It also ran a campaign to sell free enterprise and distributed textbooks, magazines, films and other 'educational' materials in schools, workplaces, clubs and other community forums.

Free Market Missionaries examines these campaigns and the other strategies used by large corporations over the last one hundred years – in the US, the UK and Australia – to persuade people that what is good for business is good for the whole community. Such campaigns have touched every aspect of government policy including environmental policy, which is increasingly market-oriented.

Suiting Themselves investigates the growth of corporate power during the same period, detailing the schemes and tactics that corporate interests have used to pressure government, persuade policy makers against the regulation of business, and propel globalisation.

Since the 1970s corporate coalitions have moved from defending their economic freedom from the demands and interventions of labour unions and governments, to being far more aggressive in their goals. They have conspired to increase their power, consolidating their political influence to pressure governments to make decisions in favour of corporate interests.

An inner circle of corporate executives facilitated the formation of many business associations and coalitions that presented a united front for their corporate members and asserted the power of large corporations in political forums. These associations cooperate with each other and 'perform largely complementary tasks.' They not only share members and even leaders, but associations and coalitions often join other associations and coalitions as members, or create new associations and coalitions for specific purposes.

In this way a vast network of business coalitions and groups, supported by an array of well-funded think tanks, front groups and public relations firms, proliferated during the 1980s and 90s. Their purpose is not only to coordinate public relations campaigns as in earlier times but to exert collective pressure on policy makers to ensure that government policies increase the power and autonomy of those corporations. Many of these coalitions are now global in their reach and seek to implement corporate-friendly, open-access policies worldwide through pressure from institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Bank.

Corporations have been aided in their quest for more power and business opportunities by economic advisers – educated in economic rationalist university economics departments – and management consultants, who have advised governments and international development agencies on how to implement business-friendly policies.

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. The eclipse of democratic values by corporate values and the growth of corporate power are not a natural evolution but the consequence of a deliberate strategy employed by corporate executives who have combined their financial and political resources to manipulate community values and set global agendas.

For more information on these books and their availability see: <http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/home.html>.