Corporate power

The new imperialism - the era of colonialism may be over, but it has been replaced by a new era of economic and intellectual imperialism, enforced by the Bretton Woods and allied institutions, for the benefit of trans-national corporations. Preface to a book by Shri Faizi Shahul.

Globalisation will destroy India! - The Rediff Business Interview, March 2000. Pritish Nandy interviews Edward Goldsmith.

Is free trade working for everyone? - letter published in Prospect Magazine No. 47, December 1999, written to Jagdish Bhagwati.

Profits of doom - Steven Ferry interviews Edward Goldsmith for Government Technology Magazine, May 1999. "Built into the global economy are the seeds of its own disintegration. But the biggest problem we face today, which dwarfs all others, is global warming ... The only thing which may save us is the complete collapse of the global economy, with all the problems that that will create. The choice is between two horrors."

Gaia and the global corporations (extended version) - "Development involves methodically destroying the real world or the world of living things in order to substitute in its stead a totally different world; the surrogate world or world of human artefacts ... ". This article, based on Edward Goldsmith's keynote address at the International Forum on Globalization in April 1998, was published in Caduceus magazine issues 42 and 43, winter 1998 and spring 1999.

My fears about GM food crops In this introduction to "The Monsanto Files", The Ecologist's special issue on Monsanto, Edward Goldsmith engages with the problems of corporate control of the food chain as well as the potential health issues associated with genetic modification. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 28 No. 5, September / October 1998.

Policing the environment - a talk presented to the Bellerive / Globe "Policing the Global Economy - why, how and for whom?" international conference, held in Geneva 23-25 March 1998, before Sadruddin Aga Khan. "My thesis is that there are no effective institutional methods for 'policing the global environment'. To the extent that the global environment will be 'policed' at all it is only likely to be by mass social movements ... "

Gaia and the global corporations (original version) - the keynote address delivered to the International Forum on Globalization in April 1998. It argues for "a network of loosely connected local economies ... rooted in a particular society to which they are accountable economically, socially, ecologically, and morally, and catering largely, though not entirely, for local and regional markets ... ".

The real causes of cancer - "Cancer is now a disease that afflicts one woman out of three and one man out of two, and everybody knows in their hearts what the main causes are: exposure to carcinogenic chemicals in the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe, and ionising radiation ... However the 'Cancer Establishment' ... will not admit it so the cancer epidemic is blamed on such things as faulty genes, viruses, eating fatty foods and drinking alcohol ... ". Unpublished, September 1997.

A strategy for ensuring the habitability of our planet - a lecture to the Royal Society of Arts, London, demonstrating that the interests of the economy, and those of society and the environment, are fundamentally incompatable.

Free Trade and GATT - this talk was delivered at the India International Centre on 13 December 1991 as part of a series of lectures and meetings organised by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage in 1991-1992. It was then published by INTACH in Towards Hope - an ecological approach to the future by Vandana Shiva, Jeremy Seabrook, Gunther Hilliges, Upendra Baxi, Edward Goldsmith and Paul Ekins, in December 1992, as part of its "Studies in ecology and sustainable development" series. "When you allow the market to decide our fate, you are actually saying that economic considerations must decide our fate. Then there is nothing to stop us from destroying our planet. It is happening very, very quickly indeed. In my opinion, the only hope we have if we were going to keep this planet more or less habitable is to do precisely the opposite - to make sure our economic activities are ruthlessly and systematically subordinated to social, ecological and climatic considerations. I do not think we have any alternative to doing this."

Changing values (original version) - Part Five of the introduction to Green Britain or Industrial Wasteland by Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard (Polity Press, February 1988), concluding the introduction.

Delaying tactics - Part Four of the introduction to Green Britain or Industrial Wasteland by Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard (Polity Press, February 1988).

Secrecy - Part Three of the introduction to Green Britain or Industrial Wasteland by Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard (Polity Press, February 1988).

Rationalising inaction - Part Two of the introduction to Green Britain or Industrial Wasteland by Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard (Polity Press, February 1988).

The costs of modernisation - "There is a direct, historical link between the increasingly serious environmental problems we are experiencing today and the 'modernisation' of our economic activities ... ". Co-authored by Nicholas Hildyard, co-editor of The Ecologist this article is the Introduction to Green Britain or Industrial Wasteland (Polity Press, 1986).

Industrial pollution: getting away with the crime - in the UK, there is little effective legal sanction against even the most egregiously criminal industrial polluters. But in the USA, aggressive prosecutors armed with effective environmental laws have achieved remarkable successes. This editorial article, co-written with Peter Bunyard, was published in The Ecologist Vol. 14 No. 4 1984.

Under control? - Do the laws regulating pesticide use in Britain really protect our health and environment? Far from it. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 10 No. 3, March 1980.

Can pollution be controlled? - this is a discussion of the multitude of pollutants, chemical and radiological, that are being pumped into the environment in the name of progress and development, and the failure of regulators to tackle the growing problem as to do so would challenge the principle of never-ending economic growth that threatens the entire biosphere. It was originally published in The Ecologist Vol. 9 Nos. 8 / 9, October-December 1979. This revised version appeared in 1988 as Chapter 5 of "The Great U-Turn".