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Power, Inc.: The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business And Government--and The Reckoning That Lies Ahead (2012)

by David Rothkopf(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0374151288 (ISBN13: 9780374151287)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

review 1: With Power, Inc., Rothkopf attempts to add to the public debate on the power of big business an historical perspective, but the discussion on the evolution of the modern corporation is incoherent and anecdotal at best. The book's great insight is the highly original idea that, on an ideational level, the relationship between states and big corporations can be understood in terms of public and private forms of power. However, Rothkopf never successfully reflects on what these basic notions – public, private and power – may actually mean and how they could be employed to reach an analysis of historical transformations. Thus no greater light on the nature of these powers, and how one may be more legitimate than the other, is being shed by Rothkopf's historical narrative. ... moreRothkopf seems to be mostly critical of the increasingly "unconstrained" corporate power, particularly in the United States, and the book contains some good anecdotal illustrations of the exercise of different forms of power and influence by transnational corporations. However, the book also constructs a highly simplistic juxtaposition between the state and big business as being in a zero-sum battle for power. Rothkopf never really considers the possibility that governments and corporations may be deeply interconnected and dependent on each other as centres of societal power - and that neither one of these forms of power can meaningfully be called public. This dubious juxtaposition leads to considerable analytical confusion when, for instance, the book addresses the deep connections between Wall Street banks and the Clinton and Bush Administrations, when Rothkopf discusses the highly uneven power balance between national states, divided into "major powers" and "semi-states", or when he admiringly describes the success stories of Singapore and the United Arab Emirate, whose governments have adopted such liberal globalising policies that have, for all practical purposes, only encouraged the increase of global corporate power. The unsatisfactorily simplistic outlook and constantly reappearing analytical confusion of the book is particularly disappointing because in Superclass, his previous, much more coherent work of non-academic non-fiction, Rothkopf described the highest echelons of global power and usefully transcended the artificial dichotomy between business and political elites. Its central idea, that there is a global superclass of the super-rich and super-influential that networks globally, connects culturally and moves flexibly between public and private positions in its exercise of power, was a significantly more provocative thesis than the one presented in Power, Inc. Readers who, despite its weaknesses, found Power, Inc. inspirational, would be well advised to go back to Superclass to find a more memorable and thought-provoking discussion on the nature of global power in the 21st century.
review 2: It's a rich man's world! Have we arrived yet? I welcome the author's impartial contribution to the debate on the important issue of the roles of government and big business in modern society. I particularly liked the specific referencing of legal case precedents in one part of the book. I also really like the author's idea of weaving a corporate history through the book, although at times it seemed like an historical supplement to a corporate annual report. While the book is, for the most part, fairly objective, the author is not afraid to call a spade a spade in the world of commerce or give his opinion of other books. I strongly dislike authors telling me their opinion of another book when they reference it. For instance, I do not share Mr. Rothkopf's opinion of "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. I would have rated "Power Inc." much higher but the delivery of the content was ruined by a long-winded narrative style full of parenthetical remarks and asides. I doubt that many will remember much of this soporific book when they wake up after reading it. There are several words and phrases and a sentence structure that are repeated far too often. The clarity and memorability of the book is substantially weakened by the frequently interrupted sentences and the employment of Jeopardy style guessing game sentences whose answer is the last word. "Doomed to Repeat" by Bill Fawcett, "Ruling the Waves" by Deborah Spar and even "Critical Path" by Buckminster Fuller are far more memorable and clear. Without substantial blue pencil revision, I can recommend this book only to bored board directors with insomnia or interested parties with gallons of coffee. less

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