Introduction: Corporate power and the threat to democracy Book

Cox, RW. (2012). Introduction: Corporate power and the threat to democracy . 1-10. 10.4324/9780203121610-6

cited authors

  • Cox, RW

authors

abstract

  • Introduction A decade into the new millennium, the fusion of corporate and state power is the essential defining feature of US foreign policy. For over 30 years, the political and economic ascendancy of sectors of transnational capital has pushed political discourse in the US steadily to the right of the political spectrum. While political scientists write about the increasing polarization between US political parties, the extent to which both parties operate within a corporate framework often gets lost in the stridency of contemporary partisanship. Both Democratic and Republican Presidents have endorsed escalating military budgets, deregulation of global financial markets, and massive federal bailouts of US-based financial institutions deemed “too big to fail.” Shouting matches occur with some frequency within the corporate boundaries of permissible dissent, but only in a manner that never challenges the policies of military expansionism and unsurpassed corporate welfare. Corporate largesse has been focused overwhelmingly on Wall Street, which is a starting point for understanding the outlines of a corporatist US state that has taken shape after three decades of a right turn. The defining features of US corporatism are a commitment to transnational capital accumulation, global financial deregulation, and a steady expansion of US Empire. A Wall Street-Treasury complex rests side-by-side with a militaryindustrial complex in a structure of plutocracy that fundamentally threatens the stability of US democratic institutions.1.

publication date

  • January 1, 2012

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 13

start page

  • 1

end page

  • 10