Life Inc: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back

I love the idea, unfortunately it's full of 'big & fancy' words, which I found a pity - if you really are aiming for change - it helps if you understand what you are reading and don't have to stop and look up words every other page. I read a lot and have a reasonably decent vocabulary - this was work. Books (unless I'm studying) are for enjoyment/relaxation/enrichment and should not cost too much effort. I will still try to finish it one day....

the book identifies the problems with our current world and the way most of us participate in it however the authors solutions are weak to say the least.

this was easy to find, was what i was looking for, was good quality with no hassels what so ever

The first part about history of corporations made me as wet as a bored housewife reading the "Fifty Shades of Grey".

I hardly recongnised the book I've just read from Peter Haydon's review. Haven't checked all the many references Rushkoff provides for his historical research, but he is certainly not 'ignorant' of financial history; nor is his style 'pseudo-academic', if anything it was a little too journalistic for my taste, but clear and very readable.Anyway, my recommendation is to get down to your local bookshop and read the last two chapters. The penultimate chapter clarifies many of the reasons I've been dissatisfied with anti-corporate activism over the last few years, while the last is a good summary of grass roots initiatives to tackle the problems. It doesn't make for a rousing climax, but the sort of social and political diatribes that do, (left- or right-wing) tend to be the ones that end badly.

The first point to note is that Rushkoff isn't attacking money or trade in itself: "Commerce is good" he says, "Corporatism is something else entirely". Tracing corporations back to the monarchy, and showing them as an extension of the same power-hungry, oft-corrupt idealogoy, Rushkoff explores the same territory as Joel Bakan's The Corporation and the Yes Men's stunts and films. But it's a vital and urgent issue: how centuries of corporate influence have turned us into a world of "isolated, individualistic people pitted against each other" at a time when cooperation is more urgently needed than ever.It seems a vital debate as the big three problems of the modern world - poverty (and related conflicts), global warming and lifestyle/mental health problems, are linked in a vicious circle supported by corporations so massive and far removed from their original purpose as to have forgotten making money is far less important than (and often inversely related to) wellbeing and survival. Lives of unfulfilling, unproductive work that we don't believe in making us miserable, forcing us to buy more stuff we don't need made by cheap, exploited foreign labour, in turn using up valuable resources and bringing the planet closer to enviro-catastrophe. It's a circle where no-one benefits other than a few large shareholders, and even they are endangering their own heirs - a non-Darwinian illogicality.As is often the case, the problems seem to be spelled out here in far more detail than the solutions, but there is the general argument in favour of the group over the individual, interdependence, collective action as well as small scale thinking and personal life changes. There is, however, a strong warning against 'branded movements', the corporate/institutional solution and Bono-esque save-the-world "ego trips" that "are the artifacts of the strident individualism we were taught to embrace".Essential reading, even if you don't agree with everything within it.

Douglas Rushkoff delivers a great analysis and perspectives on how we all have embodyied and become slaves of the corporate mindset. A provocative and inspiring book - though you could say it's stronger in it's critique of the existing US model than in concrete bids on alternatives to the existing system and thinking. Must read...

A very clear insight into why we live the way we do and how we are manipulated to ensure the march of the corporate monopolies. This book will defiantly make you think.