Reforming Globalization

T HE PURSUIT OF A JUST SOCIETY involves carefully balancing two contradictory necessities with regard to the corporate sector. Since corporations are responsible for much of the wealth and many of the jobs in a modern economy, they must be nurtured. At the same time, however, even as the corporate sector is fostered, justice and fairness require that these firms not be permitted to exercise disproportionate power. The need to encourage the corporate sector is rooted in the fact that corporate-driven economic development dramatically raises living standards and thereby reduces the injustices associated with deprivation. The increased volume and array of goods and services to which even moderate-income people in developed societies have access is a prized advance that they will not and should not be expected to concede. Similarly, the people who live in poor countries legitimately seek the broadly distributed improved levels of health, education, and material comfort that are promised by a future of economic development. But even as corporations and financial institutions contribute to material advances, the risk is that they will promote their own interests in ways antagonistic to the well-being of the society as a whole. Democratic norms therefore require that the corporate sector not be permitted to dominate other segments of society in determining the rules governing its behavior. An anticorporate politics will not be able to attract extensive support if it requires economic retrenchment in the developed world or impedes the emergence of improved living conditions in poor countries. But at the same time, the left’’s egalitarian commitments necessitate reducing disproportionate