Includes bibliographical references and index.

Shareholder and stakeholder capitalism -- The government: billions of people are governed more by companies than by countries -- The workers -- Taxes and the wormhole in the global economy -- Foreign policy: does every company need its own state department, pentagon, and CIA? -- The geography of change: the contest for power between closed and open systems.

"For 150 years, there has been a contract. Companies hold the power to shape our daily lives. The state holds the power to make them fall in line. And the people hold the power to choose their leaders. But now, this balance has shaken loose. As the market consolidates, the lines between Walmart and the Halls of Congress have become razor-thin. Private companies have begun to behave like nations, and with the government bogged down in bureaucratic negotiations and partisan wars, people look to nimble, powerful firms to solve societal problems-and to be our moral standard-bearers. As Walter Isaacson said about Ross's first book, "The future is already hitting us, and Ross shows how it can be exciting rather than frightening." Through interviews with the world's most influential thinkers and stories of corporate activism and malfeasance, government failure and renewal, and innovative economic and political models, Alec Ross proposes a new social contract-one that resets the equilibrium between corporations, the governing, and the governed."