Power Play: The Fight to Control the World s Electricity

by Sharon Beder

As electrification spread across America in the early twentieth century, private corporations moved quickly to reap unprecedented profits from millions of new paying customers. Blocking their path was the widespread view that electricity was a basic need and that its production should be regulated―if not owned outright―by the public. The electricity companies fought back, buying up newspapers, radio stations, and politicians, and flooding the schools with free, pro-industry schoolbooks. Their actions heralded the advent of corporate public relations, and form a major chapter in the history of the industry. In an eye-opening investigation, Sharon Beder's Power Play reveals the decades-long struggle to wrest control of electricity from public hands. Her analysis ranges from the machinations of American political power to grassroots struggles in South Asia aimed at stemming the environmental degradation caused by multinational energy providers. In so doing, she sets the stage for understanding the damage done by deregulation, the roots of the Enron scandal, and the contemporary debacle of electricity supply.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Economics

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Sharon Beder is an honorary professor in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong.

Sharon's research has focussed on how power relationships are maintained and challenged, particularly by corporations and professions. She is interested in environmental politics; the rhetoric of sustainable development; the philosophies behind environmental economics; and trends in environmentalism and corporate activism/public relations. Most recently she has broadened her research interests to critique various manifestations of neoliberalism including privatisation and deregulation, market solutions to social problems and the business takeover of school education.

She has written 10 books, around 150 articles, book chapters and conference papers, as well as designing teaching resources and educational websites.

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent chronology on the privatization and deregulation of the utilities industry and a study on the power of propaganda on the human mind. Also includes a great run down on the Enron debacle and how the national electric grid became a commodities trading venue rather than a service delivery mechanism.

[At Tripa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A traves de engaños es como se dado la desregulación de sistemas eléctricos solo para beneficio de unos privados y políticos, la esencia del neoliberalismo a costa del pueblo. Y se sigue dando en muchos otros ámbitos. Para reflexionar, el actuar de los representantes, ante organismos internacionales con la colaboración de gobiernos, ante oportunidades de avanzar en la dirección correcta "progreso".