Customer Reviews
They did it in broad daylight! - By: Dr. Julienne B. Ford, 08 Mar 2006 
The Dome, the lottery, the Scottish Parliament, the Manchester tram scam, the destruction of the railways & London Underground: these are all scandals we know about & which make us think the lunatics are running the asylum. We feel bewildered disempowered, ripped off & plain scared for the future of our country & the world.
None of these episodes is coveredin this book. Yet through its coverage of the Skye Bridge, the Coventry hospitals, the “regeneration” of Southampton, genetic engineeringin agriculture & medicine, the takeover of our universities - & much, much more it explains everything about the declinein quality of life, accelerating gap between rich & poor, & the total destruction of anything remotely resembling “democracy” which is going on all around us while we sit there swigging Special Brew & watching reality tv.
If Monbiot never wrote another thing he would have entirely justified his existence with this book which is quite simply THE most important book on politicsin Britain this century. In reading it you realise that you are not mad after all & neither are “they”!
Quick! We have only a few months to save the world. The single most useful thing each of us can do is to buy TWO COPIES of this book right now. Send one to your local MP with a note saying you are waiting for her/his response before casting another vote.
A Wealth of Facts, But ... - By: , 15 Feb 2006 
The main areas addressed by this book are : the PFI issues surrounding the contract to build Skye Bridge, corporate involvementin new-hospital builds, how businesses & Southampton City Council co-operated to exclude local people from a major redevelopment decision, how property developers & major corporations influence local council planning decisions, how the big supermarket chains dominate the UK's entire food supply chain & how this impacts smaller suppliers & shopkeepers, a directory of business leaders subsequently appointed to influential government or public sector posts, the corporate lobbying power of biotech companies (e.g. Monsanto) & how gene-patenting distorts the market for genetically-engineered products, how corporate sponsorship of university research departments & corporate representatives on government research-advisory councils reduces the quality & availability of independent scientific research, & how big business vigorously campaigns for multinational trade deals struck by the EU & at the WTO & how such deals undermine meaningful democratic government.
The final chapter is a call-to-actionin support of, amongst other things: a reductionin the legal rights of big business (e.g. the abolition of their right to sue for libel); new government powers to limit the size of, & break-up, businesses; local community planning events with statutory weightin planning decisions; binding UN-derived international rulesin the areas of employee protection, consumer rights & the environment; global human rights laws enforceable at international tribunals; global harmonised corporation taxes & democratic world political institutions.
This book is packed with both real-world details on how big business & government actually operate & is illustrated with earthy little anecdotes that reveal how the macro affects the micro. This combination means it is positively bursting with accessible little insights on things-economic & political. For these reasons, it is definitely worth reading.
However, the title, premise & tone of the book - that corporations, & not politicians, are the ones orchestrating all of today's monumental political changes - are, for me, & on the evidence of this very book, patently false. The author's proposed solution too - global democratic government, no less - is, for many, a most unwelcome prospect, not least because such an arrangement may well prove to be a contradictionin terms.
The British thinking-person's Michael Moore - By: , 15 Jul 2004 
"Captive State" is an eye-opener for anyone who still believes New Labour has anything to do with socialism. Monbiot presents a rigorously-researched, rational & hugely convincing portrait of the extent to which corporations are changing the way society functions & exploiting weak government for monetary gain. The approach is refreshingly non-subjective - he showcases the human side of private-finance blunders such as the Skye Bridge fiasco without becoming overly sentimental, & acknowledges that universal trade treaties like the controversial Multilateral Agreement on Investment could be beneficial if properly policed. However he makes no secret that the failures of governments to stop the virtual blackmail of food suppliers by large superstores, & the behaviour of pharmaceutical companiesin the use of harmful chemicals & genetic modification, are truly unforgiveable.
In whole it is a reminder that corporations are merely a tool to be used by the human race, & must not be allowed to affect our civil liberties. While the tone is journalistic & generally non-biased, the content is enough to stir the blood & inspire action at a personal level - this reader for one is already making efforts to avoid shopping at supermarkets. And reading it 3 years after its publication is still worthwhile - particularly as it now seems the power of corporate lobbying has reached the point where it can even co-erce governments into going to war.
The only thing that may put some readers off is that Monbiot is a researcher first, populist agitator second, & the academic-style prose with long lists of facts make certain sections a bit of a grind to read. For this reason a film by Monbiot would probably be a lot less successful than one by Michael Moore. But it would be a lot harder to pick holesin his arguments.
Interesting, but over-rated and under-sourced... - By: , 28 Dec 2003 This is undoubtedly a very important book, highlighting many of the 'innovative' waysin which British servies have become runin recent years. Local democracy, already strangled under the Thatcher years, has pretty much disappeared under Blairismin the midst of big business money & central control-freakery.
with the banks. PFI's comein for criticism - it is also good to see the Skye Bridge mentioned here, with interviews with Robbie the Pict. However, Monbiot's 'Guardian' columns & his website hint at the self-important tone which permeates this book - & the constant references to 'we' are especially annoying, as I feel little empathy with middle class bleeding hearts like this author. The importance of the subject matter, however, far outweighs any problems I might have with the writing style, & this deserves to be widely read.
Good grief . . . - By: , 08 Aug 2003 I read this bookin one sitting, completely transfixed - not so much at the greed of the businesses & corporations concerned (which one takes as a given) as the complicity of government officialsin nuturing it. Having read it as I did a day after going through Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" I found myself slowly losing the will to live...
"Captive State," throroughly researched, well-written, & engaging, leads me to conclude that we are not far off the sort of lifestyle grimly portrayed by the likes of Orwell - only it won't be the State whose control we're under, but rather the multinationals. Everything needs to make a profit - our taxes, it seems, are not intended to enhance our quality of life but to assistin "driving commerce forward", "expanding into new markets" & other supercilious corporate-speak. For shame!
I held back one star because I was expecting a bit more from Monbiot as to how we, the Great Unwashed, can turn this horrible juggernaut around. There seems little pointin voting for a changein government (he points out that New Labour has actually lowered the corporate tax rate - Maggie Thatcher would no doubt approve), & changing our habits as consumers meansin most cases merely shifting our credit card bills from one set of greedy ogres to another.
Corporations certainly have an important role to playin a modern society, & are a necessary evil of any free enterprise system; it would seem governments have taken advantage of voter apathy & couch-potato behaviour to let them ride roughshod over the world.
I hope Mr. Monbiot will continue to enlighten us with further relevationsin future books.
