The current chaos in the world is more than 50 years in the making
A document called the Powell Memo laid out a strategy for corporations to take away the power of ordinary people. What can we do about it?
Prince George, BC, December 23, 2025/ - This year marks 60 years since the publication of the book that saved an incalculable number of lives, Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader. It resulted in the global automobile industry building safer vehicles due to public and legal pressure.
As the world watches Donald Trump’s disregard for international law and the US Constitution become more blatant every day, many are wondering how the United States became so divorced from its professed ideals. I would argue that it is intentional, it has been years in the making, and it is largely due to Corporate America’s response to Nader’s message of accountability.
The framers of the American government understood the importance of checks and balances, and this is largely why the United States has been able to weather many storms in its 250-year existence. The Federal Government is made up of three branches, the legislative, judicial and executive. None has absolute power. For example, the president (executive) can veto a law passed by congress (legislative) and the courts (judicial) can rule a law unconstitutional. One reason why Donald Trump was held in check during his first term as president was because of this system.
Unfortunately, the systems put in place to preserve democracy in the United States and elsewhere have been under assault for decades. After the rise of consumer and environmental advocacy in the 1960s, resulting in better safety standards and other benefits to ordinary people, corporate America began seeking a way to regain power. The Powell Memo appeared in 1971, written by corporate lawyer who had represented the tobacco industry, Lewis Powell. It provided the blueprint that industry was looking for. Interestingly, Powel went on to become a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States a few years later.
Over the decades, corporations became more and more powerful, and government institutions put in place to protect ordinary citizens were gutted. Today in the United States, many would argue that with their ability to fund elections and lobby politicians, the corporations now control America. The tactics put forward by the Powell Memo have also had a negative impact on democracies in other countries, including Canada.
Is the chaos consuming the Western world the inevitable result of corporate control? Are our democratic institutions strong enough to survive the current onslaught against them?
The answers may be found by listening once again to the person who was singled out in the Powell Memo, the aforementioned Ralph Nader. Powell stated that Nader “had become a legend in his own time and an idol of millions of Americans.”
Nader is now 91 years old, and despite efforts to discredit and marginalize him, he continues to fight for democracy and corporate accountability. He has also inspired countless others to engage in this effort. Many of these people are featured on his weekly podcast, the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.
Nader has been warning about the impact of the attack on the principles of the American Constitution for decades, but, unfortunately, he has been largely shut out by the corporate media since the 1970s, and few outside of his core audience seem to be listening.
It is important we recognize that while corporations play a valuable role in our capitalist system, we need effective means to hold them accountable. We also need to pay attention when politicians attack the institutions that are essential to democracy, notably our judiciary, free and objective journalism, our academic freedom, and our right to protest.
Hopefully, the overreach of the Trump administration – as well as mass arrests by the government in Great Britian and other allied countries to squash pro-Palestinian protests - will be a wake-up call for citizens of democracies around the world.
Thank you, Ralph Nader, for saving lives and for being a voice of reason in our troubled world.