On Corporate Power

New in Ceasefire, On Corporate Power - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 12:00 - 1 Comment

On Corporate Power | Of Pink Ribbons and Philanthropy

In this month's column, Michael Barker addresses the commercialisation of the breast cancer movement which, as highlighted in Samantha King's recent book 'Pink Ribbons, Inc', has turned a personal tragedy into a "market-driven industry of survivorship".

New in Ceasefire, On Corporate Power - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 12:00 - 3 Comments

On Corporate Power | White Philanthropy For Black (Mis)education

Black students during a class on the assembly and repair of telephones at Hampton Institute (1899)

Michael Barker looks at the central, highly ideological, role played over the past 150 years by US white philanthropists in shaping education policies for blacks, promoting the freedom of the few to exploit others, and the freedom of the many to endure it.

New in Ceasefire, On Corporate Power - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 9:09 - 2 Comments

On Corporate Power | Of Ideology and Philanthropy

In his latest column, Michael Barker examines the anti-democratic nature of liberal philanthropy. As he notes, many of the organisations that regularly challenge the legitimacy of corporate power are in fact often themselves funded by corporate donors.

New in Ceasefire, On Corporate Power - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 3:17 - 3 Comments

On Corporate Power | Private Philanthropy Vs Public Education

The Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago (Photo: Nikopoley)

Michael Barker explores the leading role played by private philanthropic foundations in the accelerating corporatisation of public education. Unless this relationship is understood and its impact resisted, he warns, we could be seeing the end of public education as we know it, with disastrous consequences.

New in Ceasefire, On Corporate Power - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 4:22 - 2 Comments

On Corporate Power | Miseducation and the New Slavery

Virginia Hall, The Hampton Institute (Photo: www.bluffton.edu)

Ruling class philanthropists have maintained a long history of subsuming educational needs to capitalist growth prerogatives. In his latest column, Michael Barker looks at how industrial education served as “a major force in the subjugation of black labour in the New South” in the United States.

New in Ceasefire, On Corporate Power - Thursday, September 15, 2011 12:00 - 1 Comment

On Corporate Power Who owns American universities?

In a new essay on corporate power, Ceasefire columnist Michael Barker examines the intriguing role of corporate philanthropy in the American higher education system.

New in Ceasefire, On Corporate Power - Sunday, February 20, 2011 0:00 - 4 Comments

On Corporate Power Rockefeller’s Medicine Men

Is there a relationship between capitalism and healthcare? If so, what is it? In his monthly essay investigating corporate power, Ceasefire columnist Michael Barker looks at how corporations shape our public healthcare systems, with disastrous results.

New in Ceasefire, On Corporate Power - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 0:00 - 2 Comments

On Corporate Power Non-profit corporate power: sheep in wolf’s clothing?

Why do corporations give billions of dollars to charitable foundations every year? Does it make their profit-making activities less exploitative? In the first of a monthly series of columns investigating corporate power, Michael Barker looks at non-profit foundations.