Books by Joel Bakan

"A very important book, an arresting study directed to a central issue of the times." -Noam ChomskyFrom the author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power comes this deeply informed and unflinching look at the way corporations have slyly rebranded themselves as socially conscious entities ready to tackle society's problems, while CEO compensation soars, income inequality is at all-time highs, and democracy sits in a precarious situation.Over the last decade and a half, business leaders have been calling for a new kind of capitalism. With income inequality soaring, wages stagnating, and a climate crisis escalating, they realized that they had to make social and environmental values the very core of their messaging. There is just one small problem with their new conscientious pitch: corporations are still, first and foremost, concerned with their bottom-line. In lucid and engaging prose, Joel Bakan lays bare a litany of dangerous corporate actions and documents how increasing corporate freedom encroaches on individual liberty and democracy. Through deep research and interviews with both top executives and their sharpest critics, he exposes the inhumanity and destructive force of the current order-profit-driven privatization subverting the public good, business-pressured governments neglecting duties to protect the environment and citizens' rights, the increasing alienation we experience as every aspect of life is economized, and how the novel Coronavirus pandemic reveals the unjust fault lines of our corporate-led society. Beyond diagnosing major problems, in The New Corporation Bakan narrates a hopeful path forward. He reveals how citizens around the world are fighting back and making gains in ways that bolster democracy and benefit ordinary citizens rather than the corporate elite.

Joel Bakan argues that the Canadian Charter of Rights (1982) has failed to promote social justice because it is administered by a conservative judiciary and because social and economic conditions constantly interfere with its principles.

New Edition What would the world be like if its ruling elite was insane? The most powerful class of institution on earth, the corporation, is by any reasonable measure hopelessly and unavoidably demented. The corporation lies, steals and kills without remorse and without hesitation when it serves the interests of its shareholders to do so. It obeys the law only when the costs of crime exceed the profits. Corporate social responsibility is impossible except insofar as it is insincere. At once a diagnosis and a course of treatment, The Corporation is essential reading for those who want to understand the nature of the modern business system. It is a sober and careful attempt to describe the world as it is, rather than as corporate public relations departments would have us believe it to be. It reveals a world more exotic and more terrifying than any of us could have imagined. And although a billion dollar industry is trying to convince you otherwise, the corporations that surround us are not our friends. Charming and plausible though they are, they can only ever see us as resources to be used. This is the real world, not science fiction, and it really is us or them.