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Business-Managed Democracy

“Business-managed democracies are those in which the political and cultural arrangements are managed in the interests of business”

Sharon Beder

Business-Managed Government

Membership of Key Groups

Corporations are interconnected through overlapping board memberships and in the US those with the most extensive connections – American Express, Sara Lee, Chase Manhattan Bank, General Motors, Procter and Gamble – tend to play a central role in the network.

This table shows membership of some key US trade coalitions (past and present)

  NFTC USCIB CSI IPC USA*
Engage
US Trade TABD Council of the Americas BRT
3M                  
ABB                  
AIG                  
AmEx                  
Boeing                  
Caterpillar                  
Citigroup                  
Dow Chem                  
DuPont                  
E. Kodak                  
ExxonMobil                  
Ford Motor                  
GE                  
Haliburton                  
Pfizer                  
P&G                  

  Membership=  
Source: Sharon Beder, Suiting Themselves: How Corporations Drive the Global Agenda, Earthscan, London, 2006, p. 206.