A presentation by

Enrico Tortolano
(enrico@pcs.org.uk)
and
John Medhurst
(johnme@pcs.org.uk)

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 The Corporate Takeover of Public
Services (and how we can win them
back)

By Enrico Tortolano

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Asked what her greatest achievement
was. She replied, “New Labour. We
forced our opponents to change their
minds”.

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 Marcos
Chiapas, Mexico

“Only for the powerful is history an

upward line, where their today is always
the pinnacle. For those below, history is a
question which can only be answered by
looking backwards and forwards, thus
creating new questions…”
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Over the last 100 years corporate PR has used its
skills, techniques and finance to impose business
interests on public policy

Shrouded in secrecy and deception big business

PR operatives have been able to pursue their
objectives undetected

Corporate propaganda is not simply trained on

governments and public servants, but on civil
society too.
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“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the
organised habits and opinions of the masses is an
important element in democratic society. Those who
manipulate this unseen mechanism of society
constitute an invisible government which is the true
ruling power of our country”

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What were the leaders of industry afraid of?

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•The Bolshevik Revolution
•The rise of militant labour
•The danger of social revolutions

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The potential of universal suffrage to
produce an elected government
which might attempt to move
against the interests of business

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1. Corporate Propaganda, 1911 – 1930
2. Second Wave Corporate Propaganda, 1936-50
3. Third wave – Global

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•Formed a web of business lobby groups
which were inter-connected to government,
police and intelligence agencies

•How elites should cope with extended

franchise

•Policy Planning Groups to exert influence on

public policy

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The Engineering Employers Federation
The British Commonwealth Union
The London Imperialists
Federation of British Industry
National Propaganda

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Mission:

“What is required is some years of

propaganda for capitalism as the
finest system that human ingenuity
can devise, to counteract forty years
of socialism”

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This was not a campaign based on arguments
and ideas alone.

This was a struggle against popular democracy

which used violence and intimidation alongside
persuasion and propaganda.

The most co-ordinated anti-Labour machine this

country has ever seen

Prominent in helping break the 1926 General

Strike.

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Wall Street Crash
Mass movements against
business
New Deal
Roosevelt’s Second Election
Attlee Government
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“ I should like it said of my first administration
that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust
for power met their match... I should like it
said of my second administration that these
forces met their master”

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The National Association of Manufacturers
strategy:
•Break the capacity of Unions
•Discredit union leaders
•Mobilise community against union
•Raising the banner of law and order

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The 1936/37 strike by the American
Federation of Labour

Novel for the degree of brutality

shown against the union

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1. Label union leaders as ‘agitators’
2. Anti-union laws
3. Mass propaganda to get public
sentiment against strike
4. Police to use violent tactics
5. Convince strikers their cause is
worthless
6. Claim union has a minority of
employees

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Youth clubs
Sports teams
Housewives’

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•FBI
•UK Secret Services
•Economic League
•National Propaganda

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“To defend private interests against democratic reform with the
explicit aim of countering the emerging pressure for
nationalisation of industry”.

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Even in 1945 there was a mass ANTI-
NATIONALISATION campaign waged
against the Attlee government.

Seen as threat to private profits

US held ace in shape of Marshall Plan

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Labour left and trade unions potential threat to
business interests

Need to transform Britain so business can do

what it likes

Government simply a mechanism for allocating

resources to business

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Foreign Office set up ‘anti-communist’ body – Information
Research Department (IRD)

Worked closely with Atlanticist foundations, think tanks

and front groups for business.

Economic League and Aims of Industry

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Ideological backlash against Keynesian economics
and big government

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On slopes of Mont Pelerin, Switzerland
Economists, Philosophers, Historians met with
the aim of reversing the tide of collectivism

“to convince public intellectuals who were

perceived as won over by socialism”

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The rise of a remarkable number of
right-wing think tanks and Corporate
Bodies

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Friedrich von Hayek: The Road to Serfdom

Milton Friedman: Capitalism and Freedom

“To alter public opinion you do it through

intellectuals first”

Propaganda outlet for market fundamentalism

underpinned by privatisation of public assets

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Overwhelmingly rejected within confines
of democratic debate

Could only be implemented through a

violent coup

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Eduardo Galeano

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Brutal overthrow of socialist president Salvador
Allende

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Friedman saw Pinochet’s psychopathic
dictatorship as a laboratory for his neo-
liberal experiment

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1. Privatisation,
2. Deregulation
3. Public Spending Cuts

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•Privatised 500 companies and banks
•Cut public spending by 72%
•Opened economy to world imports flooded
in
•Outlawed trade unions
•Abolished taxes on wealth
•Privatised Pensions
•Abolished minimum wage

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•1974 Inflation 375%
•Cost of basics such as bread went through
roof
•Unemployment reached record levels
•Hunger rampant
•Real wages declined by 45%

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Dictators did not destroy economies
alone

Took years of hard work by the most

brilliant minds in world academia

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Thugs in Uniform running
unspeakable regimes also privatised
essential public services and cut
public spending to disastrous Effect

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Seeds of the new Latin American socialism sown by this
disastrous experience of privatisation and neo-liberalism.

The so-called economic miracle was in fact a hoax, a fraud, a

fairy tale in which no-one lived happily ever after

Led to mass unrest throughout the continent

Organised left: Both social and Political left - trade unionists,

Indigenous groups, women’s groups, left-wing political parties
etc

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Venezuela:

•Nationalised: Oil and Gas, Banks, steel,

ceramics, Food, redistributed land etc
•2002 Coup

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2000: Cochabamba Water War

Popular Insurrection against multi-national

water company Bechtel

Bechtel’s defeat regarded as the first great

victory against privatisation in Latin
America

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•Psychopathic tactics of terror used by military
to pursue its economic agenda
•However, by 2001 fear had receded and the
country erupted in protest against austerity
measures such as privatisation
•IMF force-fed policies: millions without jobs,
pensions or welfare
•Direct Action: Organised barrio-based unions,
committees, occupied factories
•5 presidents kicked out of office in 3 weeks

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Lula da Silva was re-elected as
president of Brazil largely because he
turned the vote into a referendum on
privatisation

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Argentina
Bolivia
Uruguay
Paraguay
Venezuela
Ecuador
Nicaragua
Honduras
Guatemala
El Salvador

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EU is now following the same agenda of global
business groups and financial institutions:

IMF
World Bank
WTO
UNICE (Business Europe)
AMCHam (Brussels wing)
European Round table of Industrialists
TransAtlantic Business Dialogue (TABD)

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EU agenda driving trade and competition is almost
identical to that of the corporations

The influence of these non-democratic policy

players is openly boasted about.

Example: Services Directive/GATS Euro

Commission accepts that international trade rules
such as GATS serve the interests of transnational
corporations

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“Privatisation has been an
exercise in robbery... This is
not democracy”.

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“will rigorously halt the ongoing
social retrenchment, low pay of
public sector workers and lay-off
of personnel and put a stop to
privatisation”.

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Distinction between Tories and New Labour Dissolved

Choosing between New Labour and Tories = choosing

between Shell And BP

Invisible Government: Transnational Corporate Power

Gordon Brown - British Neo- Con

New Ruling Nexus: New Labour, Lobbying and PR Firms,

Think Tanks and Corporations

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• Major shift from representing voters to
representing business interests
• 1991: 17 Labour MPs were directors or advisers
to private corporations
•2005: at least 50
•Revolving door between government, lobbying,
think tanks and Industry which special advisers,
ministers and other Labour Party workers move
with ease.
•One example: David Clark former defence
minister now sits on board of French weapons firm
Thales.
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Almost meaningless to ask whether the connections
make any difference to government decision making.

More and more there simply isn’t any difference

between the corporations and the government.

They are part of the same network of vested interests,

believing in the same ideologies about the need to
release markets.

It is not that the business lobbyists are successful in

their attempts to influence government

They have – for many intents and purposes – become

the government
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Latin American trade unionists and social activists
shown that it is possible to defeat the champions of
neo-liberalism

Organisation and mobilisation can move us towards

democracy with social and economic justice

Latin American campaigns directed not at political

parties but the dominant neo-liberal economic
agenda

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Hope has never trickled
down. It has always
sprung up.”
Studs Terkel

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Real Activism: Doesn’t go silent
Doesn’t give up
Has little time for
establishment party politics
which can be fake

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Fear of ordinary people coming together and acting
together

Fear as old as democracy itself

Fear that suddenly people convert their anger into

action as they have done so often throughout history

I suggest we listen to the voices below

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“At a time of universal deceit
telling the truth is a
revolutionary act”
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