Over the course of seven decades Ralph Nader has been Corporate America's fiercest critic. Supreme Court Justice William Powell singled out Nader in his infamous memo as the 'single most effective antagonist of American business . . . [the] target of his hatred . . . is corporate power.'
But now, in a book that will surprise both his fans and critics, Nader profiles a small group of CEOs who he believes performed extraordinarily well as business leaders and civic reformers, some well-known, some not, who should be celebrated as exceptions whose life and career should be a course of emulation and inspiration for students of business, executives, and the wider citizenry.
This select group of mavericks and iconoclasts-which includes The Body Shop's Anita Roddick, Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard, Vanguard's John Bogle, and Busboys and Poets' Andy Shallal-give us, Nader writes, 'a sense of what might have been and what still could be if business were rigorously framed as a process that was not only about making money and selling things but improving our social and natural world.'
In Breaking Through Power, Ralph Nader draws from a lifetime waging-and often winning-David vs. Goliath battles against big corporations and the United States government. In this succinct, Tom Paine-style wake-up call, the iconic consumer advocate highlights the success stories of fellow Americans who organize change and work together to derail the many ways in which wealth manipulates politics, labor, media, the environment, and the quality of national life today. Nader makes an inspired case about how the nation can-and must-be democratically managed by communities guided by the United States Constitution, not by the dictates of big businesses and the wealthy few. This is classic Ralph Nader, a crystallization of the core political beliefs and commitments that have driven his lifetime of advocacy for greater democracy.
America's number one citizen Ralph Nader's latest
book shows us how unchecked corporate power has led to the wrecking ball that is the Trump presidency. Nader brings together the outrages of the Trump administration with the key flaws and failures of the previous administrations-both Republican and Democratic-that have
led our nation to its current precipice.
It's all in the details, and Ralph Nader knows them all. Trump didn't come out of nowhere. Bush and Obama led the way. Writing as a Washington, D.C., activist and people's advocate for over fifty years-someone who has saved more lives and caused more impactful legislation to be enacted than almost any sitting president or legislator-Nader shows how Trump's crimes and misdemeanors followed the path of no resistance of the Obama, Bush, and Clinton regimes, which ushered in the extreme rise of corporate power and the abandonment of the poor and middle classes.
