Ted Nace
Encyclopedia
Ted Nace is an American
writer
, publisher, and environmentalist
notable for his critique of corporate personhood
and his anti-coal activism. He co-founded Peachpit Press from his house and grew it into a substantive publisher of computer–related books; it grew quickly, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle
. In 2008 he became active in efforts to block the development and use of coal power plants
in the United States
which promotes protests such as sit–ins at coal mines and banks. He was described in the Huffington Post as "one of the amazing brains and strategists behind the anti-coal movement." In 2008 he co-founded the wiki
CoalSwarm
, a San Francisco
-based website to share information similar to Wikipedia
and Citizendium
but focusing on anti-coal advocacy. He is also a free-lance writer living in San Francisco
and has written essays which have appeared in publications such as Orion Magazine
.
and North Dakota
in his hometown of Dickinson
. He attended Phillips Academy
in Andover
and graduated with the school's first co-educational class in 1974. He graduated from Stanford University
. While in graduate school at Berkeley, he worked for the Environmental Defense Fund and helped develop computer simulation
s involving a cost–benefit analysis of replacing coal–fired power plants with alternative energy programs. Nace worked for the Dakota Resource Council
, a citizens’ group connected with the Energy Action Coalition concerned about the impacts of energy development
on agriculture
and rural communities.
for the computer magazine PC World
and as a columnist
for Publish! and Computer Currents magazine. He founded Peachpit Press with Michael Gardner in 1985, initially working out of his apartment in the Bay Area
of San Francisco
. He wrote numerous how–to books on computer–related subjects. Computer writer Elaine Weinmann described how Nace let authors typeset and illustrate their own books and described his publishing approach as user-friendly and innovative. The company grew in size and sales, and had a publishing orientation towards books relating to Apple computers, and was described as a leader in books about digital graphics. The firm published the MacBible series, the Real World series, the Visual QuickStart (VQS) series, and most of the titles by writer Robin Williams such as The Mac is not a typewriter and the Little Mac Book. He sold Peachpit in 1994 and left the company in 1996.
Mr. Nace explored the relation between corporation
s and democracy
in America. In 2003, his book Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy argued his case for an anti–business agenda and suggested that corporations were undermining American democracy:
Nace wrote about how earlier in his life he had created a corporation with Peachpit Press.
In his book, Nace tried to explore how corporations got what he viewed as "too much power" and how the institution developed in America. In an interview, Nace explained that the modern corporation
was a structure that "gelled about a century ago", and that it is a "sort of life form" which has "persistence, metabolism, reproduction, adaptation". Nace criticized corporations for being driven by profit. He suggested the 1886 Supreme Court
decision of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad
was the "most well known" of a string of mistaken decisions which, in his view, gave corporations the same rights as humans.
Nace argued that corporations such as General Motors
helped engineer the eclipse of America's streetcar system in the 1930s and 1940s. Nace argued that Supreme Court justice Lewis F. Powell was a pro–business advocate. Nace criticized the role that business plays in shaping political policy in the last few decades.
In the mid 2000s, Nace turned his focus to a specific area of environmentalism
, namely anti–coal activism. He founded CoalSwarm
in 2007. He was quoted about his thinking about the need to reduce coal:
Nace argued that coal usage is creating a "clear planetary crisis" but that implementing a solution is being blocked by "well-financed lobbying and PR sponsored by the coal and utility companies."
A New York Times critic found Nace's Gangs of America to be well-researched and made a compelling case that corporations have too much political power, but the writer faulted Nace for ignoring the benefit to American shareholders and for slighting "the contributions the corporate form has made to average Americans' prosperity." Critic Alan T. Saracevic in the San Francisco Chronicle
described Nace as an "obvious lefty" and that his book made a case that corporations have evolved to an "abusive state of being."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, publisher, and environmentalist
Environmentalist
An environmentalist broadly supports the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities"...
notable for his critique of corporate personhood
Corporate personhood
Corporate personhood is the status conferred upon corporations under the law, which allows corporations to have rights and responsibilities similar to those of a natural person. There is a question about which subset of rights that are afforded to natural persons should also be afforded to...
and his anti-coal activism. He co-founded Peachpit Press from his house and grew it into a substantive publisher of computer–related books; it grew quickly, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
. In 2008 he became active in efforts to block the development and use of coal power plants
Coal power in the United States
Coal power in the United States accounts for 46% of the country's electricity production. Utilities buy more than 90 percent of the coal mined in the United States....
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
which promotes protests such as sit–ins at coal mines and banks. He was described in the Huffington Post as "one of the amazing brains and strategists behind the anti-coal movement." In 2008 he co-founded the wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
CoalSwarm
CoalSwarm
CoalSwarm is an American environmentalist online project which focuses on sharing information about the coal industry. It is structured as a set of pages on the SourceWatch wiki. According to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2009, it has been an important player in the anti-coal movement...
, a San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
-based website to share information similar to Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
and Citizendium
Citizendium
Citizendium is an English-language wiki-based free encyclopedia project launched by Larry Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001....
but focusing on anti-coal advocacy. He is also a free-lance writer living in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
and has written essays which have appeared in publications such as Orion Magazine
Orion (magazine)
Orion is a bimonthly, advertisement-free, magazine focused on nature, the environment, and culture, addressing environmental and societal issues....
.
Early life
Ted Nace grew up in CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
in his hometown of Dickinson
Dickinson, North Dakota
As of the census of 2000, there were 16,010 people, 6,517 households, and 4,020 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,690.7 inhabitants per square mile . There were 7,033 housing units at an average density of 742.7 per square mile...
. He attended Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...
in Andover
Andover, Massachusetts
Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was incorporated in 1646 and as of the 2010 census, the population was 33,201...
and graduated with the school's first co-educational class in 1974. He graduated from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. While in graduate school at Berkeley, he worked for the Environmental Defense Fund and helped develop computer simulation
Computer simulation
A computer simulation, a computer model, or a computational model is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system...
s involving a cost–benefit analysis of replacing coal–fired power plants with alternative energy programs. Nace worked for the Dakota Resource Council
Energy Action Coalition
The Energy Action Coalition is a North American non-profit organization made up of 50 partner organizations in the U.S. and Canada that runs campaigns to build the youth and student clean energy movement and advocate for tangible changes on local, state, national and international levels in North...
, a citizens’ group connected with the Energy Action Coalition concerned about the impacts of energy development
Energy development
Energy development is the effort to provide sufficient primary energy sources and secondary energy forms for supply, cost, impact on air pollution and water pollution, mitigation of climate change with renewable energy....
on agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
and rural communities.
Computer publishing
Nace worked as an editorEditor
The term editor may refer to:As a person who does editing:* Editor in chief, having final responsibility for a publication's operations and policies* Copy editing, making formatting changes and other improvements to text...
for the computer magazine PC World
PC World (magazine)
PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal-technology products and services...
and as a columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
for Publish! and Computer Currents magazine. He founded Peachpit Press with Michael Gardner in 1985, initially working out of his apartment in the Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
of San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. He wrote numerous how–to books on computer–related subjects. Computer writer Elaine Weinmann described how Nace let authors typeset and illustrate their own books and described his publishing approach as user-friendly and innovative. The company grew in size and sales, and had a publishing orientation towards books relating to Apple computers, and was described as a leader in books about digital graphics. The firm published the MacBible series, the Real World series, the Visual QuickStart (VQS) series, and most of the titles by writer Robin Williams such as The Mac is not a typewriter and the Little Mac Book. He sold Peachpit in 1994 and left the company in 1996.
Activism
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
s and democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
in America. In 2003, his book Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy argued his case for an anti–business agenda and suggested that corporations were undermining American democracy:
Nace wrote about how earlier in his life he had created a corporation with Peachpit Press.
In his book, Nace tried to explore how corporations got what he viewed as "too much power" and how the institution developed in America. In an interview, Nace explained that the modern corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
was a structure that "gelled about a century ago", and that it is a "sort of life form" which has "persistence, metabolism, reproduction, adaptation". Nace criticized corporations for being driven by profit. He suggested the 1886 Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
decision of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with taxation of railroad properties...
was the "most well known" of a string of mistaken decisions which, in his view, gave corporations the same rights as humans.
Nace argued that corporations such as General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
helped engineer the eclipse of America's streetcar system in the 1930s and 1940s. Nace argued that Supreme Court justice Lewis F. Powell was a pro–business advocate. Nace criticized the role that business plays in shaping political policy in the last few decades.
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
, namely anti–coal activism. He founded CoalSwarm
CoalSwarm
CoalSwarm is an American environmentalist online project which focuses on sharing information about the coal industry. It is structured as a set of pages on the SourceWatch wiki. According to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2009, it has been an important player in the anti-coal movement...
in 2007. He was quoted about his thinking about the need to reduce coal:
Nace argued that coal usage is creating a "clear planetary crisis" but that implementing a solution is being blocked by "well-financed lobbying and PR sponsored by the coal and utility companies."
Reactions by critics
Critic Tina Gerhardt in the Huffington Post described Nace's book Climate Hope as a first-person narrative about a personal journey as well as a chronicle of the anti–coal movement and described Nace's climate agenda as "doable".A New York Times critic found Nace's Gangs of America to be well-researched and made a compelling case that corporations have too much political power, but the writer faulted Nace for ignoring the benefit to American shareholders and for slighting "the contributions the corporate form has made to average Americans' prosperity." Critic Alan T. Saracevic in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
described Nace as an "obvious lefty" and that his book made a case that corporations have evolved to an "abusive state of being."
Publications
- LaserJet Unlimited, by Ted Nace and Michael Gardner
- Desktop Publishing Secrets by Robert C. Eckhardt, Ted Nace, Bob Weibel, October 1991, Peachpit Press
- Ventura Tips and Tricks, 3rd edition, by Ted Nace, Daniel Will-Harris, September 1990, Peachpit Press
- Desktop publishing skills: a primer for typesetting with computer and laser printer, by James Felici, Ted Nace, May 1987, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc.
- Climate Hope: On the Front Lines of the Fight Against Coal, by Ted Nace, 2010.ISBN 978-0615314389, 288 pages, paperback
- Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy by Ted Nace, 2003.