Gaveling Down the Rabble: How “Free Trade” is Stealing Our Democracy (2008)
In Gaveling Down the Rabble, author & activist Jane Anne Morris explores a century and a half of efforts by corporations and the courts to undermine local democracy in the United States, using a “free trade” model.
Documenting how, since the late 1800s, the U.S. Supreme Court has hamstrung democratic processes at the local, state and national levels by taking power to make public policy from our elected representatives on the one hand, and giving power to corporations over citizens on the other, Morris explores the way in which this same “free trade” model has been adopted globally by corporations to subvert local attempts at protecting the environment and citizen and worker health.
Gaveling Down the Rabble is essential reading for understanding the background of the current struggle for U.S. democracy local, state and national against growing corporate power and how we can challenge it.
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Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy (2001)
Many of my articles are reprinted widely, and available in various nooks and crannies online (including on this site). The 2001 anthology Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy includes eight of them:
- “Help! I’ve Been Colonized and I Can’t Get Up…”
- “Why We Research Corporate Law”
- “Corporate Social Responsibility: Kick the Habit”
- “Corporations for the Seventh Generation: Changing the Ground Rules”
- “Sheep In Wolf’s Clothing”
- “Coming Soon: Futures Market in Constitutional Rights?”
- “Speaking Truth to Power About Campaign Reform”
- “Strip Corporations of Their Cloaking Device”
In addition, Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy includes five pieces by labor historian Peter Kellman. DCDD not only provides a powerful packet of dozens of insightful pieces about the history of corporations and corporate law in the US, but it also supports those who continue this work.
Not In My Back Yard: The Handbook (1994)
Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader offered this endorsement of Jane Anne Morris’s 1994 book Not In My Back Yard: The Handbook:
“This book by Jane Anne Morris teaches Americans who practice democracy how to operate in the realistic arenas that are necessary to negotiate for victory. It also keeps your focus on the larger issues of which your own “Project” is a part. If you use this book, you’re less likely to lose.”