Recent discussions on this list have focused on flaws of
particular political and economic systems (particularly
capitalism & socialism).  I would purport that as corporations
grow in size and begin to supplant many govermental
functions (e.g. capitalist trend toward 'privatization'), the
relevancy of the governmental structure of less powerful
nation states is being replaced by the economic and
developmental status of the nation, determined somewhat a
priori by both the most powerful countries and corporations.
Furthermore, the (largely 'democratic') governments of the
more powerful Western nations are increasingly catering to
the wishes of the transnational corporations and moving
further from the needs of the majority of their populations.
These trends are leading to a complete replacement of
governance by and for the people by a governance by corporate
power for profit.  [As noted recently on this list, some
corporations have surpassed all but the largest countries in
total revenue].  To simplify, corporations are in effect
replacing countries.  Chomsky has discussed many of the
above issues including how both the governments and
corporations wield huge propoganda machines to try and
convince the public that this progression is both necessary
and best for the people.  Although these topics could be the
focus of many books and long discussion, I would instead like
to focus on how we can force accountability on the
transnational corporations and return a measure of control to
the people.  I would be very interested to hear some ideas, and
below I'll discuss a few of the popular ones...

Some possibilities for corporate control:
1) An independent ruling board for each corporation that
determines or advises policy on wages and other workers
rights, trade issues, environmental policies, acquisitions, etc.
in conjunction with the existing corporate structure
Although an interesting idea, many problems are apparent:
how are "unbiased" yet expert members of such an advisory
board chosen; how do you enforce adherence to the board's
recommendations; etc.?
2) A national governmental regulatory mechanism to
investigate corporate misdeeds and hold them accountable.
This is what's on the books now in many countries (the US for
instance) - enough said?  Transnational corporations easily
escape to countries where regulations are less stringent.
This is also quite apparent within countries where laws and
enforcement differ from region to region.  In addition, the
term "national governmental" has almost come to mean
"corporate" in many countries, and we know these groups
aren't so great at controlling themselves :->.
3) An international ruling body which governs corporate
responsibility.  This is the only possibility that I think has
any chance of controlling large transnational corporation
because it operates at the same global level as the
corporations themselves.  However, it is not an easy task.  As
it stands, the UN already serves some of these functions
through treaties on international trade, etc. at the national
level (and since corporations are reaching nation status...).
However, confidence in the UN has been reduced in recent
years largely due to some of the more powerful nations
ability to ignore or individually control major rulings
(Chomsky has written reams about such transgressions by the
US and others).  Another difficulty is that governments at
every level would have to participate in this structure for it
to work.  In the US for instance, corporations are licensed at
the state level, thus the most severe punishment (revocation
of license to operate) would have to come from local
government.  The governing body would have to be quite large
to keep tabs on all international corporations, and make
enforcement feasible.  On the positive side, such a structure
would complement other UN initiatives for diplomacy and
human rights.  With this regulatory body, human rights
violations in Nigeria by a transnational corporation such as
Shell Oil would be reported by the human rights division, and
then acted on by the "corporate responsibility" division.

These proposals follow a logical trend from local to global
organization.  Because we must overcome a large power
structure for these plans to have any effect, the over-arching
solution may be far away, suggesting we should pursue both
short-term goals at the local level and long-term initiatives.
Ralph Nader's organizations are a case in point where they
work on issues ranging from rights of individual workers to
fighting international legislation such as GATT.

Again, I'd love to hear new ideas and comments on any of the
above.

-Michael Calhoun