Challenging corporate power in the fight against the far right

It is now widely recognised that the rise of the far right is occurring because neoliberalism – the dominant ideology – is being revealed as the flawed model that it is. It is creating ever-greater inequalities within societies, laying waste to the ecosystems which sustain life, and disrupting stable and indigenous patterns of living everywhere. Against this backdrop of multiple crises, stock markets and profits have continued to rise inexorably.

People most affected or “left behind” feel the need for fundamental change but the political classes which embraced neoliberalism look bereft of new ideas. Into this space have stepped far right movements. 

Far right movements offer two main solutions: a "muscular economic nationalism" and a scapegoating of migrants and minority groups. (See Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization by Richard Seymour, 2024.)

Corporations wield power over governments

Lobbying in pursuit of short-term corporate self-interest is now happening everywhere and all the time. From food multinationals lobbying against sugar taxes to healthcare companies lobbying for ever more outsourcing in the NHS.

A whole lobbying industry and infrastructure has grown up around it too.

Sometimes the pressure on regulators takes three forms: lobbying, persuasion, and legal threats. Sometimes it is clearly bribery and corruption. At other times, and in the UK particularly, it is the quasi-corruption of the “revolving door” between governments and business whereby friendly regulators can be rewarded with well-paid positions later. Much has been written about this elsewhere, but two classic texts are Greider’s 1992 study of US democracy called Who will tell the people? and Monbiot’s UK analysis in 2000 called Captive State. Later analyses include Provost and Kennard's Silent Coup (2023). 

In addition, corporate lobbying at the international level has led to the creation of additional rights for businesses to sue governments in international trade agreements if their profits are under threat.

The outcome of this is that voices of ordinary people within our democracies are being constantly drowned out by those of business. It seems that money will always be found if business is in trouble (e.g. bailing out banks, steel, etc) but rarely if people are (e.g. disability benefit cuts, etc).

Corporate power and neoliberalism

Unlike the Communist Manifesto, neoliberalism does not have a foundational text to explain itself to us. Although vast swathes of literature exist unpicking it, one way to understand it is to view it as the net effect of thousands of very specific corporate lobbying campaigns.

And indeed, when you look at what George Monbiot describes as some of neoliberalism's central tenets, conveniently or not they align with narrow corporate interests at every turn:

• deregulation;
• reduction of workers' rights and the right to protest;
• outsourcing of public services; and
• a rolling back of the welfare state. 

It is not that “corporate power” has necessarily set out to increase inequality and drive climate chaos, but it is a consequence of each corporation logically pursuing its own self-interest and taking advantage of the size and resources that it has amassed. 

However, the consequences of neoliberalism are felt by people daily (failing healthcare, few decent jobs, rising costs, etc), while we see far right political parties seeking funding from those who don't want to lose their economic advantages.

Society picks up the costs of corporate greed

Although companies and governments have been in and out of each other's pockets since the imperial “adventures” of the 17th century, in a sense, the widespread capture of regulators by multinational corporations is a relatively new phenomenon. (See Captive State: The corporate takeover of Britain by George Monbiot, 2000.)

The old problem of “socialising costs” has been an inherent tension between businesses and societies since the year dot. If my company can “save” money by avoiding a few taxes here, or disposing of my toxic waste quietly at night there, or treating my workforce less well, there is a financial reward for me to do this. Companies of all sizes everywhere face these kinds of decisions daily.

If there is not a stakeholder voice representing society in the room when these decisions are made (or consumers pressing for change), short-term self-interest can prevail at every turn. If powerful companies are doing this in competitive markets, even companies who want to do the right thing can struggle to stay afloat if they don't cut costs in the same way too. 

Economists call this the “race to the bottom”.

Because the rest of society ends up picking up the tab for fixing the consequences of all these cost-saving decisions, we can call this “socialising costs”. 

This problem has long been recognised by economists and, traditionally, it has been addressed by government regulation. Unfortunately, as we saw above, the impact of high-pressure corporate lobbying for deregulation means that this corrective mechanism to the problem of socialising costs is not what it was.

The consequences of short-term cost cutting and poor regulation such as polluted rivers, low tax revenues and poor working conditions also add fuel to a growing sense of malaise which the far right can exploit.

Fixing the problem ... and the role of smaller companies

It is not as if the problem of corporate power and its influence over governments has not been spotted in the past. A wide variety of fixes have been attempted. David Cameron introduced a register of lobbyists in the UK and a similar requirement exists in the EU. These appear to have had little effect.

Many policies requiring the public reporting of corporate donations to political parties, or trying to limit them (as occurred in the USA), have either been ineffective too or challenged in courts. Rules around “revolving door” appointments in the UK are frequently ignored.

It is this failure to fix the issue which has led us at Ethical Consumer to ask the question: is it possible to fix companies themselves to stop the problem occurring in the first place? Our 30 years of studying corporate ethics sees much less lobbying for commercial self-interest and socialising costs by co-operatives, charities, and social enterprises.

This has also led us to another question: is the problem all companies or just multinationals?

There are three answers to this second question.

1. The first is that the problem of socialising costs occurs with companies of all sizes.

2. The second is that, if regulation generally is being undermined by the power of larger companies, even tiny companies can become tempted to do the wrong thing more often.

3. The third is that small companies can become big companies quite quickly if the circumstances are good. Even Google was an SME once.

This is the reason why we have been discussing other mechanisms to raise concern in companies of all sizes around the public interest when necessary. 

We identified six key elements for people to help push for:

• community ownership;
• boycotts;
• conversion of for-profit companies;
• equity fines;
• nationalisation in some industries; and
• discouraging new for-profit corporations from being formed. 

We will explore these in more detail in future articles.

Most of all, and to tackle the root causes of neoliberalism, we need to be opening up discussion about the nature of business itself and its licence to operate. In 2025, we appear to have lost the language of our ancestors who, when rules permitting the formation of companies were being discussed, were alarmed at the idea of permitting companies to exist that did not have a “public works” focus. (See The Company by John Mickelthwait and Adrian Wooldridge, 2003.)

Encouragingly, Robert Macfarlane, writing in 2025, is one of a few keeping that flame alive, naming it a crisis of imagination that:

"It is unremarkable that a company registered yesterday is, in the eyes of the law, an entity with legal standing and a suite of rights, including the right to sue – but that a river who has flowed for 10,000 years has no rights at all."

The Lush Spring Prize awards in 2025 included a project in Peru which secured rights for a river, to flow, to be free from pollution, and to be restored to health.