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David C. Korten (born 1937) is an American author, former professor of the Harvard Business School, Activism, prominent critic of corporate globalization, and "by training and inclination a student of psychology and behavioral systems". Biography on personal web site, Living Economies Forum. His best-known publication is When Corporations Rule the World (1995 and 2001). In 2011, he was named an Utne Reader visionary.
He also served as the Harvard Business School adviser to the Nicaragua-based Central American Institute of Business Administration. He subsequently joined the staff of the Harvard Institute for International Development, where he headed a Ford Foundation-funded project to strengthen the organization and management of national family planning programs.
In the late 1970s, Korten moved to Southeast Asia, where he lived for nearly fifteen years, serving as a Ford Foundation project specialist and, later, as Asia regional adviser on development management to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which involved him in regular travels to Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
Korten has written that he became disenchanted with the official aid system and devoted his last five years in Asia to "working with leaders of Asian non-governmental organizations on identifying the root causes of development failure in the region and building the capacity of civil society organizations to function as strategic catalysts of national- and global-level change". He formed the view that the poverty, growing inequality, environmental devastation, and social disintegration he was observing in Asia also was being experienced in nearly every country in the world, including the United States and other "developed" countries. He also concluded that the United States was actively promoting—both at home and abroad—the very policies that were deepening the resulting global crisis.
He returned to the U.S. in 1992 and has assisted in raising public consciousness of the political and institutional consequences of economic globalization and the expansion of corporate power at the expense of democracy, equity, and environmental protection.
Korten is co-founder and board chair of the Positive Futures Network, which publishes the quarterly YES! Magazine. He is also a founding board member, emeritus, of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, a former associate of the International Forum on Globalization, International Forum on Globalization and a member of the Club of Rome.
The rise of powerful High technology, combined with the control of corporate as well as nation-based empires is described as being increasingly destructive to communities and the environment. Korten postulates that the world is on the verge of a perfect storm of converging crises, including anthropogenic adverse climate change, peak oil, and a financial crisis caused by an unbalanced global economy. This will precipitate major changes to the current economic and social structure.
Korten believes that these crises will present an opportunity for significant changes that could replace the paradigm of "Empire" with one of "Earth Community." Although recognizing the potential that the opportunity may not be seized, Korten hopes that this opportunity will result in the emergence of an "Earth Community," based on sustainable, just, and caring communities that incorporate the values of mutual responsibility and accountability, and he advocates toward that.
The Post-Corporate World
Building on the arguments put forward in his 1995 book When Corporations Rule the World, Korten expands on several of the themes. Having made a case for the unworkability of current economic systems on several grounds - the impoverishment of the majority of the population, the need for indefinitely expanding credit leading to the debasement of the currency, and the finite limits of energy and material resources - he provides a context for discussing alternative ways of life, and explores possible courses of action to establish them.
The Great Turning
Korten's 2006 book The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community argues that the development of empires about 5,000 years ago initiated unequal distribution of power and social benefits to the small portion of the population that controlled them. He also argues that corporations are modern versions of empire, both being social organizations based on hierarchies, chauvinism, and domination through violence.
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Categories: Official Website, 1937 Births, Living People, People From Longview, Washington, American Business Writers, Anti-corporate Activists, American Anti-globalization Writers, American Male Non-fiction Writers, American Non-fiction Environmental Writers, American Social Sciences Writers, Nautilus Book Award Winners, Development Specialists, American Sustainability Advocates, Environmental Economists, Ecological Economists, Anti-consumerists, Stanford Graduate School Of Business Alumni, United States Air Force Officers, People Of The United States Agency For International Development, Articles Containing Video Clips, Harvard Institute For International Development
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