In this brilliantly researched expos 'communications Rottweiler' Sharon Beder blasts open the backrooms and boardrooms to reveal how the international corporate elite dictate global politics for their own benefit. Beder shows how they created business associations andthink tanks in the 1970s to drive public policy, forced the worldwide privatization and deregulation of public services in the 1980s and 1990s (enabling a massive transfer of ownership and control over essential services) and, still not satisfied, have worked relentlessly since the late 1990s to rewrite the very rules of the global economy to funnel wealth and power into their pockets.

Want a globalized and homogenized world of conflict, poverty and massive environmental degradation run by a corporate oligarchy that wipes its feet on democracy? Or a democratic world, where poverty is history, companies work for people and clean water is a right, not a privilege you pay for? Beder's message is clear - it's your world, and it's time to fight for it.

Professor Beder is a qualified professional engineer and worked in this field until a career shift into researching and teaching environmental politics. She has held a number of appointments at Australian universities over the past two decades - most recently as professor in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication at the University of Wollongong in Australia. Her previous books include Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism.

A Corporate Class * National Influence * International Coercion * Washington Consensus Down Under * From Public Service to Private Profit * The Trade Agenda * Trade in Services * Coercing Trade Agreements * Deregulating Investment * Globalization Versus Democracy * Conclusion: The Triumph of Corporate Rights * Index