an interview with David C. Korten by Sarah Ruth van Gelder
A few jaws dropped among the young activists at a training camp outside Seattle where preparations for the WTO blockade were in high gear. The man who had just joined the circle looked like he might be on his way to a Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
But the young activists soon learned that David Korten is a leading critic of corporate globalization. Many credit him with opening their eyes to the threat to democracy, the environment, community, and our common future posed by transnational corporations, global finance institutions, and the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and IMF.
David Korten didn’t always hold these views. He was raised in a small town in Washington state where it was assumed that he would take over the family business. In college he was a Young Republican, and it was his concern about the threat of communism that led to his decision to help bring the US business model to impoverished countries. He helped start a business school in Ethiopia and was a Harvard Business School advisor to the Central American Management Institute in Nicaragua. He later worked for the US Agency for International Development and the Ford Foundation in Asia.
Gradually, he found that the US development model was benefitting US corporations, not those it purported to serve. In 1992, he returned to the US to explore the roles of corporations, financial markets, the IMF, World Bank, and other global institutions. This exploration took form in his book When Corporations Rule the World, published by Berrett-Koehler and Kumarian Press in 1995.
I have been privileged to be a colleague of David’s for some years. He is founding board chair of the Positive Futures Network, publisher of YES! He’s a regular contributor to YES! and an important source of insights and ideas. I spoke to David about the upcoming release of the second edition of When Corporations Rule the World.
—Sarah Ruth van Gelder
READ the Interview from the Summer 2001 issue of YES magazine