How many centers, panels and groups are basically only big world corporation, with misleading names, heading towards bigger earnings and capital? I realized while reading the book of Susan George Democracy in Danger: The Rise of Illegitimate Authority that too few people are aware of the influence that international corporations have on our daily life.
It has crossed my mind that many times when looking for sources citing a source that has other motives behind the obvious one to educate wider public is being used. Corporations have a big effect with lobbing not even in America, but also on European grounds. We are being ruled by the ones sitting in the background that we did not even elect. Is this still a democracy or just its appearance? We need to be more skeptical, and look on different backgrounds and intentions. Do we really want that private interests prevail over public ones? Do we really want to give profit organization free passage towards enforcement individual interest? TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) is the main topic in the book, but all in all we all need to be aware that in many elected parliaments and government’s invasion of private interests is not invisible anymore and that should be alarming. We all agree with public-private partnership, but not for costs of less environmental, health, food, financial, climate, chemical, and pharmaceutical and energy regulation safety. With TTIP the standards of human rights, health, environment, and healthy food will be endangered. With standards that are already being implemented, we cannot allow to go backwards in any of mentioned segments. Everything could in the future be subordinated to the logic of profit. Transnational corporations and organizations are in many ways posing a threat to all of us.
The reasons given by the European Commission and impacts of free trade agreement between the European Union and United States are overruled in her book, that give a man think that we are living in an imaginary world without understanding who is really in charge. In my opinion book is important since it gives us another point of view on international relations that are more and more interconnected with private interests and are in many cases opposing the public well-being. The topic is not new since negotiations are being held for years now but that does not make it less important. In whose interests is European Commission working and who are the ones that are making rules there?
Maybe we should not be afraid of these negotiations maybe we need to do something about that course of actions that are happening before our noses. Educating the wider population and knowledge will help us to keep democracy untouched and prevent corporations that want to control our way of life and standard of living degrading our security. Slowly our right to elect our leaders won’t matter much and the ones that are not obliged and honor public opinion will lead all important parts of our lives. The capacity of their influence is beyond imagination.
Councils, panels, boards and organizations that are in private hands with private motives should not be allowed to act without public control over them in some of the most important sectors around the globe. Globalization and growth should not be viewed through capital, but through well- being of every individual. Battel is not over yet in fact it has just begun.