Corporatocracy  

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Corporatocracy (from corporate and -κρατία (domination by)), short form corpocracy, is a recent term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests. It is most often used as a term to describe the economic situation in the United States. This is different from corporatism, which is the organisation of society into groups with common interests. Corporatocracy as a term is often used by observers across the political spectrum.

Economist Jeffrey Sachs described the United States as a corporatocracy in The Price of Civilization (2011). He suggested that it arose from four trends: weak national parties and strong political representation of individual districts, the large U.S. military establishment after World War II, large corporations using money to finance election campaigns, and globalization tilting the balance of power away from workers.

This collective is what author C Wright Mills in 1956 called the "power elite", wealthy individuals who hold prominent positions in corporatocracies. They control the process of determining a society's economic and political policies.

The concept has been used in explanations of bank bailouts, excessive pay for CEOs as well as complaints such as the exploitation of national treasuries, people and natural resources. It has been used by critics of globalization, sometimes in conjunction with criticism of the World Bank as well as criticism of "free trade agreements".

See also

• Anti-corporate activism
• Banana republic
• Capitalist state
• Conflict theories
• Corporate capitalism
• Corporate crime
• Corporate media
• Corporate republic
• Corporate scandal
• Crony capitalism
• Disneyfication
• Elite theory
• Inverted totalitarianism
• Megacorporation
• Oligarchy
• Plutocracy
• The powers that be (phrase)
• Proprietary colony
• Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor
• State monopoly capitalism
• Too big to fail

Works

• The Corporation (film)
• The Power Elite (book)
• Zeitgeist: The Movie