The recognition of this by a lot of companies is in part what's fueling the growth in our membership, which has grown from a couple hundred companies five years ago to 1,500 today, employing 7 million people. But it's not happening fast enough to prevent the demonstrations we're seeing against big companies. There isn't one simple answer as to why this is happening. One reason is that there's a sense that the role of government is shrinking, bringing a consolidation of power and influence in the private sector. So if you want to get things done, you don't go petition government, you have to have engage companies.
Power is with the companies.
Ten years ago, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace, all those groups, directed most of their efforts toward government. Now, they still work with governments, but they all have sections that address the private sector. There's also a great anxiety about globalization, and people identify the private sector as advocates for globalization. So companies become a target for people who think it may be inevitable but that it needs to be implemented in different ways. With globalization, economic advances don't necessarily advance the poorest in society, as had been commonly true in the past.