DEFYING CORPORATIONS, DEFINING DEMOCRACY:
A Book of History and Strategy
Edited by Dean Ritz

In these 70 essays, speeches, sermons and screeds, POCLAD (Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy) probes: corporations as "legal persons"; corporate social responsibility as a ploy; strategies for amending state corporation codes and challenging judge- made laws; and much, much more. Essays by POCLAD and SHAYS2 co-founder Ward Morehouse are included in this book.

This classic collection of the democracy movement, which Howard Zinn calls "powerfully persuasive," chronicles POCLAD's evolution with thousands of activists. Here are hidden histories, crisp analyses and thoughtful responses to corporate apologists‹all in one provocative book. The Apex Press for POCLAD.

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BUILDING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES:
Tools and Concepts for Self-Reliant Economic Change
Second edition
Edited by Ward Morehouse; essays include works by C. George Benello, Robert Swann, and Shann Turnbull

A revised edition of a classic work long out of print, this book is based on the Schumacher Society Seminars on Community Economic Transformation. It presents the underlying ideas and essential institutions for building sustainable communities.

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GREENING CITIES:
Building Just and Sustainable Communities
Joan Roelofs

This book is a treasure trove of practical ideas that embody Green values of social and environmental justice and are actually working in small, medium, and large cities, as well as some rural communities, all around the world. It shows how these values can be incorporated in local government policy and how they shape voluntary efforts by community groups.

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CREATING A SUSTAINABLE WORLD:
Past Experiences, Future Struggles
Trent Schroyer and Thomas Golodik, eds.

For years now, promoters of development and growth have attempted to paint themselves "green," claiming that development is sustainable. In a new book, Creating a Sustainable World: Past Experiences/Future Struggles, co-editor Trent Schroyer, Professor of Sociology-Philosophy at Ramapo College, argues that such efforts are a form of "greenwash," that gloss over the real environmental consequences of growth and mask the divergence between development and sustainability.

Schroyer and his co-editor Thomas Golodik have pulled together some of the most influential theorists and practitioners of sustainability from around the world-Vandana Shiva, Wolfgang Sachs, Robert Engler, Peter Montague, Joan Dye Gussow and Michael Shuman, among others. These seminal essays offer critiques of the publicly accepted notion of sustainability that has evolved, devoid of democratic input and driven by market forces.

Schroyer, in his own chapters and in his introductions to each section of Creating a Sustainable World, exposes the market-driven agenda underlying the dominant "sustainable development" paradigm and shows us what would be required to advance society without having the Earth irreparably harmed. The authors offer contrasting concepts of sustainability derived from civil society and grassroots communities These are models untouched by the global free trade system and come to us through the voices of people directly affected by "sustainable development" projects.

In showing how voices of civil society have been pushed outside of the official decision-making, the collection demonstrates why world sustainability rests upon the capacity for establishing democratic procedures, and ultimately favoring some human and community rights over trade rights.

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The People's Business
By Charlie Cray and Lee Drutman

Focusing on the U.S., the authors provide a thorough analysis of corporate corruption of democracy and analyze multiple strategies for reform. A dense, rewarding read.

The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America
By Lawrence Goodwyn

A classic work. The last structurally-focused challenge to corporate dominance came in the 1880s and 1890s. We have much to learn from both the Populists' successes and failures. Highly recommended for activists.

Overruling Democracy
By Jamie Raskin

Law Professor Raskin explores how the Constitution has been turned against citizens and justice in recent history and explores constitutional solutions to the Supreme Court's actions.

When Corporations Rule the World
By David Korten

Korten offers a thorough, well-reasoned, and accessible analysis of the global corporate and financial system from an insider in the financial world.

The Open Media Series from 7 Stories Press

30 titles offer focused, concise introductions to specific issues, many directly related to the struggle between democracy & corporate power.

The Hometown Advantage: How to Defend Your Main Street Against Chain Stores ... and Why it Matters
By Stacy Mitchell

Recommended to anyone concerned about the preservation of community character and independent businesses.

Making A Place for Community
By Williamson, Alperovitz and Imbroscio

A far-reaching and extensively researched exploration of politics, economics and strategies for localization that excels at linking economic democracy to political democracy.

Going Local
By Michael Shuman

Shuman looks at the alternatives to community dependence on outside corporations. Excellent resource section.

The Fox In The Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy
By Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich

The authors expose the damage privatization has done in several areas of society including, schools, prisons and the military. The authors argue that instead of privatization serving the public good, it rewards powerful corporations intent on replacing the government with a "private profit culture," in which there is limited public accountability. Si Kahn, has worked for 40 years as a civil rights, labor, and community organizer. He is executive director of Grassroots Leadership, an organization that works to abolish for-profit private prisons, jails and detention centers. Elizabeth Minnich, is Senior Fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Hidden Power: What You Need to Know to Save Our Democracy
By Charles Derber

American democracy, argues Charles Derber, is being subverted in the name of democracy itself. Political parties and elections are increasingly political theatre, with real power hidden behind a smokescreen of propaganda, carefully manipulated cultural and religious wars, and voting rituals. But there is another kind of hidden power in America: the grassroots social movements working for progressive change. If the Democratic Party can ally with these movements, American can be returned to its people. Derber sees American history as a succession of regimes, each spanning several administrations. Since the end of the Civil War, regimes of hidden power, in which corporate interests control both parties behind the scenes, have alternated with more open, inclusive and democratic regimes. Derber details how and why these hidden power systems finally collapsed and what determined the types of regimes that succeeded them.

Hidden Power reveals how the current regime, possibly the most corporate in history, has maintained power by intensifying the red/blue culture wars, supporting religious extremists, exploiting terrorism fears, and manipulating the electoral process. Will this latest corporate regime be replaced by a more progressive one? Or it could turn even further right and yield to something even worse, a uniquely American form of fascism?

The best hope for positive change lies in an alliance between the Democratic Party and the grass roots progressive movements that, Derber shows, have always been the catalysts for change. Hidden Power concludes an impassioned argument for why this this would be in the Democrats' best interests, as well as the country's, as a detailed program for exactly how to go about it. Thoughtful, eloquent and compelling, Hidden Power offers real hope for restoring genuine democracy to America. Charles Derber is a Professor of Sociology at Boston College and former director of its graduate program on Social Economy and Social Justice. He is the author of ten books, including Corporation Nation, People Before Profit, The Wilding of America, and Regime Change Begins at Home.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
By John Perkins

Perkins spent the 1970s working as an economic planner for an international consulting firm, a job that took him to exotic locales like Indonesia and Panama, helping wealthy corporations exploit developing nations as, he claims, a not entirely unwitting front for the National Security Agency. He says he was trained early in his career by a glamorous older woman as one of many "economic hit men" advancing the cause of corporate hegemony. He also says he has wanted to tell his story for the last two decades, but his shadowy masters have either bought him off or threatened him until now. The story as presented is implausible to say the least, offering so few details that Perkins often seems paranoid, and the simplistic political analysis doesn't enhance his credibility. Despite the claim that his work left him wracked with guilt, the artless prose is emotionally flat and generally comes across as a personal crisis of conscience blown up to monstrous proportions, casting Perkins as a victim not only of his own neuroses over class and money but of dark forces beyond his control. His claim to have assisted the House of Saud in strengthening its ties to American power brokers may be timely enough to attract some attention, but the yarn he spins is ultimately unconvincing, except perhaps to conspiracy buffs. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition
By Michael H Shuman

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