David C. Korten (born 1937) is an American author, former professor of the Harvard Business School,

political activist A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some ...

, prominent critic of corporate globalization, and "by training and inclination a student of psychology and behavioral systems".Biography
on personal web site, ''Living Economies Forum''. His best-known publication is '' When Corporations Rule the World'' (1995 and 2001). In 2011, he was named an ''

Utne Reader ''Utne Reader'' (also known as ''Utne'') ( ) is a digital digest that collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment, generally from alternative media sources including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music, and ...

'' visionary.

Early life and career

David Korten was born in

Longview, Washington Longview is a city in Cowlitz County, Washington, United States. It is the principal city of the Longview, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Cowlitz County. Longview's population was 37,818 at the time of the 2 ...

, in 1937 and is a 1955 graduate of its

R. A. Long High School R. A. Long High School is the oldest high school serving the city of Longview, Washington. A part of Longview Public Schools, it was erected in 1927, three years after the city of Longview was incorporated. The total student enrollment at the end ...

. He received a

master of business administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accoun ...

and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He said: "My early career fter leaving Stanford in 1959was devoted to setting up business schools in

low-income Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

income

countries—starting with Ethiopia". He served during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

as a captain in the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

, undertaking U.S.-based teaching and organizational duties; and for five and a half years was a visiting professor in the Harvard Business School. While at Stanford in the 1950s, he married Frances Fisher Korten, with whom he now lives on

Bainbridge Island Bainbridge Island is a city and island in Kitsap County, Washington. It is located in Puget Sound. The population was 23,025 at the 2010 census and an estimated 25,298 in 2019, making Bainbridge Island the second largest city in Kitsap County. ...

near

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

Career and main body of work

Korten served for five and a half years as a visiting associate professor of the

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Graduate School of Business where he taught in Harvard's middle management, M.B.A., and doctoral programs. He also served as the Harvard Business School adviser to the

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...

-based

Central American Institute of Business Administration INCAE Business School is an international business school located at the Francisco de Sola campus in Nicaragua and the Walter Kissling Gam campus in Costa Rica. The ''Financial Times'' has ranked INCAE as a top global MBA program and ''The Wal ...

. He subsequently joined the staff of the

Harvard Institute for International Development The Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) was a think-tank dedicated to helping nations join the global economy, operating between 1974 and 2000. It was a center within Harvard University, United States. Foundation and leadership ...

, where he headed a

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

-funded project to strengthen the organization and management of national family planning programs. In the late 1970s, Korten moved to

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

, where he lived for nearly fifteen years, serving as a Ford Foundation project specialist and, later, as Asia regional adviser on development management to the

United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 b ...

(USAID), which involved him in regular travels to Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Korten has written that he became disenchanted with the official aid system and devoted his last five years in Asia to "working with leaders of Asian

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...

s on identifying the root causes of development failure in the region and building the capacity of

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.catalyst Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...

s of national- and global-level change". He formed the view that the poverty, growing inequality, environmental devastation, and

social disintegration Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of socioeconomic complexity, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible causes ...

he was observing in Asia also was being experienced in nearly every country in the world, including the United States and other "developed" countries. He also concluded that the United States was actively promoting—both at home and abroad—the very policies that were deepening the resulting global crisis. He returned to the U.S. in 1992 and has assisted in raising public consciousness of the political and institutional consequences of

economic globalization Economic globalization is one of the three main dimensions of globalization commonly found in academic literature, with the two others being political globalization and cultural globalization, as well as the general term of globalization. Econom ...

and the expansion of corporate power at the expense of democracy, equity, and

environmental protection Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment by individuals, organizations and governments. Its objectives are to conserve natural resources and the existing natural environment and, where possible, to repair dam ...

. Korten is co-founder and board chair of the Positive Futures Network, which publishes the quarterly '' YES! Magazine''. He is also a founding board member, emeritus, of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, a former associate of the International Forum on Globalization,International Forum on Globalization
/ref> and a member of the Club of Rome.

''The Post-Corporate World''

Building on the arguments put forward in his 1995 book ''When Corporations Rule the World'', Korten expands on several of the themes. Having made a case for the unworkability of current economic systems on several grounds - the impoverishment of the majority of the population, the need for indefinitely expanding credit leading to the debasement of the currency, and the finite limits of energy and material resources - he provides a context for discussing alternative ways of life, and explores possible courses of action to establish them.

''The Great Turning''

Korten's 2006 book ''The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community'' argues that the development of empires about 5,000 years ago initiated unequal distribution of power and social benefits to the small portion of the population that controlled them. He also argues that corporations are modern versions of empire, both being social organizations based on hierarchies, chauvinism, and domination through violence. The rise of powerful advanced technology, combined with the control of corporate as well as nation-based empires is described as being increasingly destructive to communities and the environment. Korten postulates that the world is on the verge of a

perfect storm A perfect storm is a meteorological event aggravated by a rare combination of circumstances. The term is used by analogy to an unusually severe storm that results from a rare combination of Meteorology, meteorological phenomena. Origin The Oxfor ...

of converging crises, including anthropogenic adverse

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

, post-peak oil production decline, and a

financial crisis A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and man ...

caused by an unbalanced global economy. This will precipitate major changes to the current economic and social structure. Korten believes that these crises will present an opportunity for significant changes that could replace the paradigm of "Empire" with one of "Earth Community." Although recognizing the potential that the opportunity may not be seized, Korten hopes that this opportunity will result in the emergence of an "Earth Community," based on sustainable, just, and caring communities that incorporate the values of mutual responsibility and accountability, and he advocates toward that.

Bibliography

* ''Planned Change in a Traditional Society: Psychological Problems of Modernization in Ethiopia'' (1972), Praeger Publishers * ''People-Centered Development: Contributions Toward Theory and Planning Frameworks'' (with Rudi Klauss, 1984), Kumarian Press * ''Bureaucracy and the Poor: Closing the Gap'' (with Felipe B. Alfonso, 1985), Kumarian Press * ''Community Management: Asian Experience and Perspectives'' (1986), Kumarian Press * ''Getting to the 21st Century: Voluntary Action and the Global Agenda'' (1990), Kumarian Press * ''The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism'' (1999), Berrett-Koehler Publishers; . * ''Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible, 2nd Edition'' (2004) * ''The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community'' (2007), Berrett-Koehler Publishers; . * ''Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, 2nd Edition'' (2010), Berrett-Koehler Publishers; . * ''Globalizing Civil Society'', 2010, ReadHowYouWant * ''Change The Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth'' (2015), Berrett-Koehler Publishers; . * '' When Corporations Rule the World'' (2015, 3rd Edition), Berrett-Koehler Publishers; .

References

External links

*
Video of David Korten with the Dalai Lama
during filming of the documentary Dalai Lama Renaissance

*
Conscious Choice - The End of Business as Usual
- 2007 article on Korten, his work, and an assessment of the significance of ''The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community'' *

- article by David C. Korten *
We Are Hard-Wired To Care and Connect
- article by David Korten, July 30, 2008, '' YES! Magazine'' *
The Story of David Korten
- 2007 article by Our World in Balance *
Everybody Wants To Rule The World
- 2007 interview with David Korten on ''The Great Turning'' by Arnie Cooper in ''

The Sun magazine ''The Sun'' is a magazine based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-large ...

'' *
Development, Heresy and The Ecological Revolution: An open letter to the Industrialized world
- 1992 article by David C. Korten *

- 2006 critique of Korten's perspective by author Mark Satin {{DEFAULTSORT:Korten, David 1937 births Living people People from Longview, Washington American business writers Anti-corporate activists American anti-globalization writers American male non-fiction writers American non-fiction environmental writers American social sciences writers Nautilus Book Award winners Development specialists Sustainability advocates Environmental economists Ecological economists Anti-consumerists Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni United States Air Force officers People of the United States Agency for International Development Articles containing video clips Harvard Institute for International Development