Fat Cats and Running Dogs: The Enron Stage of Capitalism - Softcover

Prashad, Vijay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1567512186 ISBN 13: 9781567512182

Publisher: Common Courage Press, 2002

Synopsis

From the author of two Village Voice books of the year comes a ruthless expose of the raptors at Enron. Behind the screams over workers’ disappearing pensions, disappearing jobs, and disappearing CEO responsibility lies a bigger story: What Enron has done to the world.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Vijay Prashad is Associate Professor and Director, International Studies at Trinity College. He is the author of two Village Voice books of the year: Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting (Beacon, 2001) and Karma of Brown Folk (Minnesota, 2000). He lives in Western Massachusetts.

From the Author:

By now we have all read enormous amounts about the shenanigans of Enron, the excesses of the CEO class and the waste that is capitalism. But this rendition of the story fails to address at least two elements of the fall of Enron: (1) the structural role played by Enron as the forerunner among many other firms for the global capital's attack on the Commons; (2) the global story of Enron's activities.

Enron was not simply a crooked firm that defrauded its workers and pensioners. That is far too parochial as a framework. I detail the role played by Enron to enclose that section of the human economy that we have, for fifty years, called the 'public sector.' The zones of water, energy, air, education, and others, had been held off from commodification and held in trust by the state. In the Second Enclosure movement of the 1990s, these zones came under threat from global corporations -- with Enron leading the way. The book tells this story, using the Philippines, India and Argentina as the main examples.

Furthermore, the book is a manual for global conquest -- it offers hints to would-be capitalists that if they want to get to the Enron pinnacle, they need to use the CIA, craft monopoly conditions and hire US government workers just out of the revolving door. This is imperative.

Finally, the book offers a window into the fight over oil and water, over the tensions in Colombia, Afghanistan and Bolivia

About this edition

• Publisher: Common Courage Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1567512186
• ISBN 13: 9781567512182
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224