THE SILENT TAKEOVER
By Noreena Hertz
Arrow Books. 312 pages. £7.99
ISBN 0 09 941059 1
The argument of this important book is that large multi-national companies have such a stranglehold on politicians that the very foundations of democracy are in jeopardy.
The author is the Associate Director of the Centre of International Business and Management at the Judge Institute of Cambridge University, and seems to have her finger on the pulse of international affairs, and every relevant statistic and big business story at her fingertips. This makes for a very stimulating, if uncomfortable, read. In a fundamentally materialistic world there are no other convincing values except economic ones. This puts the money makers rather than government in the driving seat. The old political order is changing and probably not for the better.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …