Joel Bakan's seminal anti-corporate work, The Corporation -- probably the most read book in our office since David Korten's When Corporations Rule the World -- has been re-released in a new revised and expanded edition (*now with added Chomsky*).

Where Korten's book examined the way in which corporations control and shape the world around them, Bakan inquires into the nature of the corporation itself, and how that gives rise to the kind of behaviour we have come to loathe. If a corporation is a person, as legally it is, what kind of a person is it? Wholly self-centred and indifferent to the needs of others, opportunistic, dishonest and with a wildly exaggerated sense of its own importance: it is a psychopath. He criticises not just the current laissez faire paradigm of corporate capitalism, but also the very legitimacy of the corporate form.

Bakan chooses some original examples to illustrate his points -- an attempted coup in 1930s USA led by captains of industry with fascist sympathies; marketing techniques that employ children's power to pester their parents; and many other examples of shameless corporate arrogance. What really makes his research stand out however are the interviews that form an essential part of it. He interviews the economist Milton Friedman, Mark Moody-Stuart (former CEO of Shell), Noam Chomsky and other pro and anti-corporate movers and shakers. The genius of it is how much they all seem to agree on what a corporation is. The difference is that the capitalists believe that overall the system works well, in spite of its evident flaws.

Bakan's insights always seem fresh, especially where he contrasts the corporate person with human beings, 'no one would seriously suggest that individuals should regulate themselves, that laws against murder assault and theft are unnecessary because people are socially responsible. Yet oddly, we are asked to believe that corporate persons... should be free to govern themselves.' His prescriptions for dealing with the problem, which are likely to challenge and/or disappoint both radicals and moderates, are sadly rather brief; little more than a sketch of a program to contain and perhaps dismantle corporate rule. Perhaps we can expect more on this in future works.

Revisions to the text for this new edition are relatively minor. What distinguishes it from the first edition is the appendix: an October 2000 interview with Noam Chomsky. Although a cynic might say that the interviewer, Mark Achbar, is not so much interviewing as providing a form of punctuation for Chomsky's extended train of thought, it is a real gem, chatty and yet incisive and illuminating. Few people can criticise 'the system' without sounding like a cliche, but Chomsky pulls it off in his typically low-key style. It is an excellent companion to the book; an examination of the corporation's role in the modern economic and political environment.

The Corporationis superbly researched and referenced, but also relatively short (165 pages) and extremely readable. Read this book, and encourage others to do likewise. You may also enjoy Corporate Watch's similar report Corporate law and Structures: Exposing the Roots of the Problem (click here to read it)