Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.

• Author: Fischer, Raymond L.
• Position: Book review

UNSTOPPABLE

The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State

By Ralph Nader

Nation Books, N.Y

2014, 193 pages, $25.99

Author, lecturer, attorney, and political activist, Ralph Nader ranks among Atlantic's 100 most influential figures in American history. Nader wrote this book "to explore the topic of convergence, which [he] took to be voluntary alliances for the common good by positive-spirited persons of the Right and Left." A major area of potential for building alliances comes from deep aversion many have to wars of empire and corporate control over their lives, particularly the "ever-tightening influence of Big Business on the mainstream media, elections, and local, state, and Federal government. The concentrated power of corporations abuses people indiscriminately."

Nader defines a consistent, profound consensus American people have for directions the nation must pursue; areas of consensus can become realities only when deliberations occur at "the concrete levels of daily life and experience." However, how to "reach agreed-on ends is the devil in the details." The book begins with several examples in which Left-Right coalitions have broken through the "immense lobby of government contractors" to enact a law. Creating convergent legislation "because it is the right thing to do" remains difficult; the leadership in the House and Senate tend to lock horns over contentious issues designed to "hold their base and garner election-time advantages." In other words, "they do not want to make each other look good."

Nader considers corporate supremacy "corporatism or 'corporate statism,'" a system with power and status over 'the constitutionally affirmed sovereignty of the people." It is the all-encompassing corporatist agenda. Nader quotes Pres. Franklin Roosevelt's statement that 'the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state ... is in essence fascism." Nader believes the corporate agenda stimulates Left-Right contention to preclude collaboration which could cause a "serious discomfort for corporations."

Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, corporations receive the same "wasteful privileges, immunities, inflated contracts, and other perks of crony capitalism and weak law enforcement." Nader proposes an alternative based on supremacy of civic values to which corporations must adjust and still be productive. Nader makes every attempt to expose "corporate camouflage and...