Editing David Korten

{{short description|American ex-business professor, author, activist}}
{{Infobox writer
| name         = David Korten
| image        = David Korten, 2010 (cropped).jpg
| imagesize    = 
| caption      = 
| birth_name   = 
| birth_date   = 1937
| birth_place  = [[Longview, Washington]]
| death_date   = 
| death_place  = 
| occupation   = Teacher, institutional systems analyst, environmentalist, activist, and author
| nationality  = 
| ethnicity    = 
| citizenship  = 
| education    = 
| alma_mater   = [[Stanford University Graduate School of Business]] (MBA, Ph.D.)
| period       = 
| genre        = [[Community-based economics|Localized economies]], [[ecological economics]], [[environmental economics]], [[alternative energy]], [[living economies]], [[sustainability]], [[climate change]]
| subject      = 
| movement     = 
| notableworks = 
| spouse       = Frances Fisher Korten
| partner      = 
| children     = 
| relatives    = 
| influences   = 
| influenced   = 
| awards       = 
| signature    = 
| website      = {{URL|http://davidkorten.org/}}
| portaldisp   = 
}}

'''David C. Korten''' (born 1937) is an American author, former professor of the [[Harvard Business School]], [[Activism|political activist]], prominent critic of [[corporate globalization]], and "by training and inclination a student of psychology and behavioral systems".<ref name=selfbio>[http://www.davidkorten.org/davids-story Biography] on personal web site, ''Living Economies Forum''.</ref> His best-known publication is ''[[When Corporations Rule the World]]'' (1995 and 2001). In 2011, he was named an ''[[Utne Reader]]'' visionary.<ref name="visionary">{{cite web|title=David Korten: Money Changer|url=http://www.utne.com/Politics/Utne-Reader-Visionaries-David-Korten-Money-Changer.aspx|publisher=Utne Reader, November–December 2011|accessdate=19 October 2011}}</ref>

==Early life and career==
David Korten was born in [[Longview, Washington]], in 1937 and is a 1955 graduate of its [[R. A. Long High School]]. He received a [[master of business administration]] and [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] from the [[Stanford University Graduate School of Business]]. He said: "My early career [after leaving Stanford in 1959] was devoted to setting up [[business school]]s in [[Poverty|low-income]] countries—starting with Ethiopia". He served during the [[Vietnam War]] as a captain in the [[United States Air Force]], undertaking U.S.-based teaching and organizational duties;<ref name=selfbio/> and for five and a half years was a visiting professor in the Harvard Business School. While at Stanford in the 1950s, he married Frances Fisher Korten, with whom he lives on [[Bainbridge Island, Washington|Bainbridge Island]] near [[Seattle, Washington]].{{cn|date=September 2023}}

==Career and main body of work==
[[File:David Korten, The Green Interview.webm|thumb|right|David Korten in conversation with [[Silver Donald Cameron]] about his work]]
Korten served for five and a half years as a visiting associate professor of the [[Harvard University]] Graduate School of Business where he taught in Harvard's middle management, M.B.A., and doctoral programs.

He also served as the [[Harvard Business School]] adviser to the [[Nicaragua]]-based [[Central American Institute of Business Administration]]. He subsequently joined the staff of the [[Harvard Institute for International Development]], where he headed a [[Ford Foundation]]-funded project to strengthen the organization and management of national [[family planning]] programs.

In the late 1970s, Korten moved to [[Southeast Asia]], where he lived for nearly fifteen years, serving as a Ford Foundation project specialist and, later, as Asia regional adviser on development management to the [[United States Agency for International Development]] (USAID), which involved him in regular travels to Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.<ref name=selfbio/>

Korten has written that he became disenchanted with the official aid system and devoted his last five years in Asia to "working with leaders of Asian [[non-governmental organization]]s on identifying the root causes of development failure in the region and building the capacity of [[civil society]] organizations to function as strategic [[economic catalyst|catalyst]]s of national- and global-level change".<ref name=selfbio/> He formed the view that the poverty, growing inequality, environmental devastation, and [[social disintegration]] he was observing in Asia also was being experienced in nearly every country in the world, including the United States and other "developed" countries. He also concluded that the United States was actively promoting—both at home and abroad—the very policies that were deepening the resulting global crisis.

He returned to the U.S. in 1992 and has assisted in raising public consciousness of the political and institutional consequences of [[economic globalization]] and the expansion of corporate power at the expense of democracy, equity, and [[environmental protection]].

Korten is co-founder and board chair of the [[Positive Futures Network]], which publishes the quarterly ''[[Yes! (U.S. magazine)|YES! Magazine]]''. He is also a founding board member, emeritus, of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, a former associate of the International Forum on Globalization,<ref name="ifg">[http://www.ifg.org/ International Forum on Globalization]</ref> and a member of the [[Club of Rome]].

==''The Post-Corporate World''==
Building on the arguments put forward in his 1995 book ''When Corporations Rule the World'', Korten expands on several of the themes. Having made a case for the unworkability of current economic systems on several grounds - the impoverishment of the majority of the population, the need for indefinitely expanding credit leading to the debasement of the currency, and the finite limits of energy and material resources - he provides a context for discussing alternative ways of life, and explores possible courses of action to establish them.

==''The Great Turning''==
[[File:David Korten at The Great Turning in October 2010.jpg|thumb|David Korten in 2010]]
Korten's 2006 book ''The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community'' argues that the development of empires about 5,000 years ago initiated unequal distribution of power and social benefits to the small portion of the population that controlled them. He also argues that corporations are modern versions of empire, both being social organizations based on hierarchies, [[chauvinism]], and domination through violence.

The rise of powerful [[High technology|advanced technology]], combined with the control of corporate as well as nation-based empires is described as being increasingly destructive to communities and the environment. Korten postulates that the world is on the verge of a [[perfect storm]] of converging crises, including [[Human impact on the environment|anthropogenic]] adverse [[climate change]], [[peak oil|post-peak oil production decline]], and a [[financial crisis]] caused by an unbalanced global economy. This will precipitate major changes to the current economic and social structure.

Korten believes that these crises will present an opportunity for significant changes that could replace the paradigm of "Empire" with one of "Earth Community." Although recognizing the potential that the opportunity may not be seized, Korten hopes that this opportunity will result in the emergence of an "Earth Community," based on sustainable, just, and caring communities that incorporate the values of mutual responsibility and accountability, and he advocates toward that.

==Bibliography==
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= Planned Change in a Traditional Society: Psychological Problems of Modernization in Ethiopia
|date= 1972
|publisher= ABC-CLIO, LLC
|isbn= 978-0275282905
|ol= 48133499M}}
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= People-Centered Development: Contributions Toward Theory and Planning Frameworks
|date= 1984
|publisher= Kumarian 
|isbn= 978-0931816314
|ol= 8384842M}}
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= Bureaucracy and the Poor: Closing the Gap
|date= 1985
|publisher= Kumarian
|isbn= 978-0931816307
|ol= 8384841M}}
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= Community Management: Asian Experience and Perspectives
|date= 1987
|publisher= Kumarian
|isbn= 978-0931816406
|ol= 8384845M}}
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= Getting to the 21st Century: Voluntary Action and the Global Agenda
|date= 1990
|publisher= Kumarian
|isbn= 978-0931816840
|ol= 1852582M}}
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= Globalizing Civil Society: Reclaiming Our Right to Power
|date= 1998
|publisher= Seven Stories Press
|isbn= 978-1888363593
|ol= 8710484M}}
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism
|date= 2000
|publisher= Berrett-Koehler Publishers
|isbn= 978-1887208031
|ol= 6782263M}}
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World Is Possible
|date= 2004
|publisher= Berrett-Koehler Publishers
|isbn= 978-1576753033
|ol= 8748583M}}
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community
|date= 2007
|publisher= Berrett-Koehler Publishers
|isbn= 978-1887208086
|ol= 9503667M}}
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth
|date= 2010
|publisher= Berrett-Koehler Publishers 
|isbn= 978-1605093758
|ol= 24580917M}}
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth
|date= 2015
|publisher= Berrett-Koehler Publishers  
|isbn= 978-1626562905
|ol= 27791393M}}
* {{Cite book 
|last= Korten
|first= David
|title= [[When Corporations Rule the World]]
|date= 2015
|publisher= Berrett-Koehler Publishers 
|isbn= 978-1626562875
|ol= 27791469M}}

==See also==
* [[Corporate libertarianism]]
* [[Earth Charter]]
* [[Spaceship Earth]]
* [[Joanna Macy]], collaborator with Korten who uses "The Great Turning" idea in her work

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
{{Commons category}}
* {{Official website|http://davidkorten.org/}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20081204054513/http://www.dalailamafilm.com/cast-david-korten/david-korten-biography-anti-globalization-corporate-power.html Video of David Korten with the Dalai Lama] during filming of the documentary [[Dalai Lama Renaissance]][http://www.dalailamafilm.com]
* "[http://www.consciouschoice.com/2006/11/korten0611.html/ Conscious Choice - The End of Business as Usual]" - 2007 article on Korten, his work, and an assessment of the significance of ''The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community''
* "[https://web.archive.org/web/20101121072745/http://www.pcdf.org/corprule/betrayal.htm The Betrayal of Adam Smith]" - article by David C. Korten
* "[http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/purple-america/we-are-hard-wired-to-care-and-connect We Are Hard-Wired To Care and Connect]" - article by David Korten, July 30, 2008, ''[[Yes! (U.S. magazine)|YES! Magazine]]''
* "[http://ourworldinbalance.blogspot.com/2007/10/story-of-david-korten.html The Story of David Korten]" - 2007 article by [[Our World in Balance]]
* "[http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/381/everybody_wants_to_rule_the_world?page=1 Everybody Wants To Rule The World] - 2007 interview with David Korten on ''The Great Turning'' by Arnie Cooper in ''[[The Sun (magazine)|The Sun magazine]]''
* "[http://www.context.org/iclib/ic32/korten/ Development, Heresy and The Ecological Revolution: An open letter to the Industrialized world]" - 1992 article by David C. Korten
* "[http://www.radicalmiddle.com/x_korten.htm What Can We Learn from the Antiglobalists?]" - 2006 critique of Korten's perspective by author [[Mark Satin]]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Korten, David}}
[[Category:1937 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:People from Longview, Washington]]
[[Category:American business writers]]
[[Category:Anti-corporate activists]]
[[Category:American anti-globalization writers]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:American non-fiction environmental writers]]
[[Category:American social sciences writers]]
[[Category:Nautilus Book Award winners]]
[[Category:Development specialists]]
[[Category:American sustainability advocates]]
[[Category:Environmental economists]]
[[Category:Ecological economists]]
[[Category:Anti-consumerists]]
[[Category:Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni]]
[[Category:United States Air Force officers]]
[[Category:People of the United States Agency for International Development]]
[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
[[Category:Harvard Institute for International Development]]