Ecocide: kill the corporation before it kills us

In the almost fifty years since the seminal work Global Reach by Richard Barnet and Ronald E. Muller there have been many books that warn, explore, or even celebrate the power – political, economic, cultural – of large corporations. These have come in the shape of both individual case studies of particular companies, or sectors, or more broadly still global overviews. David Whyte, a professor of socio-legal studies at the University of Liverpool has added to that body with his latest work, which falls staunchly in the global (and historical) overview category. His contribution is informative, erudite, well-written and extensively referenced, but may leave those more interested in ‘what is to be done’ a little frustrated.

Events have overtaken many books written before the pandemic, and Whyte seeks to overcome at least some of this with a preface – ‘from COVID-capitalism to survival of the species’ – in which he argues that the virus and the responses to it has ‘put into sharper focus the stark choice we face for the future of the planet.’ In the introduction Whyte first mentions a Swedish mining company, Stora Koppaberg, established in 1288, which he uses throughout the book as an example of the persistence and mutability of the corporation, able to change its form and purpose, while evading responsibility for the consequences – social, economic, ecological – of its actions. This historical perspective is one of the books great strengths, in comparison with others which can imply that nothing which happened before roughly 1945 is of any consequence. Whyte also makes the useful point that corporations and their power are conspicuously absent from the texts of international climate agreements.

The rest of the book is divided into three sections. The first asks, and answers, the core question ‘what is a corporation?’ with compelling historical examples of its growth and impact. Whyte argues that since ‘at least the end of the nineteenth century, the corporation has been the key institutional mechanism through which surplus value is accrued and then redistributed and re-invested in capitalist social orders’ (p. 65), observing that this is rarely seen as a core function of corporations, even in critical texts.

The second takes the reader on an historical journey ‘from colonialism to ecocide: capitalism’s insatiable need to destroy’ and will be of particular use to lecturers looking for easily digestible but rigorous work to set as reading for courses in environmental history or international relations. Whyte demonstrates that the ‘claims transnational corporations make as the guarantors of environmental sustainability contain precisely the same hypocrisy that we find in the classic colonisers’ claim to be civilising the savages’ (p. 68). His section on the South Sea Bubble (pp. 76–81) would make an excellent short reading for seminars across a range of disciplines.

The third section ‘regulation at the end-point of the world’ introduces various concepts from the Marxist regulation school, and demonstrates the ways in which corporations have been able to evade or repurpose regulations meant to constrain them and in fact strengthen their position. Whyte’s conclusion is that ‘we need a form of regulatory intervention that can secure a lasting solution to the crisis [which] ensure that corporate structures are not merely reproduced or strengthened’ (p. 145).

And it is in the conclusion – ‘kill the conclusion before it kills us’ that Whyte comes down to earth. After showing how other proposals, such as a ‘corporate death penalty’ fall short, he outlines his own – entirely sensible – proposals. But much as the mice gathered and agreed that the cat should wear a bell, without actually saying which mice would perform such an arduous and dangerous task, so too Whyte doesn’t explain which constellation of actors, acting in concert across physical, cultural and class boundaries, will act in which ways, resisting the co-optation and repression that would inevitably follow efforts to undermine elite power. As early as page 4 he describes the climate movement within trades unions as ‘nascent’. Some would quibble with this empirically, but Whyte could have explained why unions, thirty years into the climate crisis, are still only ‘nascent’ and what that says about what else needs to be done within and beyond them. More curiously, Whyte does not make any mention of the strengths and many weaknesses – and limitations – of various climate divestment movements and what they have achieved and might yet achieve. For a book about averting ecocide by taking on corporate power, this is a major lacuna.

Whyte argues that ‘it is impossible to avert ecocide as long as corporations remain in control of the industrial processes that are wrecking the world’ (p. 3) and – as is customary with this type of book – extols the 1970s Lucas Plan, where workers at armaments factories facing redundancy proposed diversified and socially-useful production. The Lucas Plan is, understandably, used to show that another world is possible, without considering how replicable or scalable it might be, and what has changed in the intervening fifty years.

A pro-corporate critic of the book would point to the power of instrumental rationality and the ‘advantages’ of economies of scale or the predictability of standardised products and supply chains. Whyte does not pre-empt such defences.

These reservations aside, this is a strong contribution to the literature on corporations and the environment. It will be of significant use to scholars in a variety of disciplines, not least environmental politics, both for what it says and the citations leading to other fields of debate and study. It is written with intellectual rigour and without the obfuscation, painful legalese and jargon that sometimes infects these works, it can be assigned as a core reading for advanced undergraduates and Masters students who want to study corporate power as the Anthropocene beckons.