Ralph Nader was born in 1934 in Winsted, CT to Lebanese immigrants Rose and Nathra Nader. Civic duty had a special meaning in Winsted, the small town in northwestern Connecticut where Nathra ran the Highland Arms Restaurant and engaged his customers in spirited debate about public affairs. Studious, bright and intense, Ralph followed the Yankees, played with David Halberstam, the future journalist, and read back issues of the Congressional Record with equal enthusiasm. By age 14 he had read the early muckrakers--Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair and George Seldes--who were to inspire his thinking about the distribution of power in American society and the possibilities of citizenship.
In 1955, he graduated magna cum laude from Princeton, and 1958 from Harvard Law School. It was at Harvard where Nader first explored an unorthodox legal topic: the engineering design of automobiles. His research resulted in an April 1959 article published in The Nation, "The Safe Car You Can't Buy," in which he declared, "It is clear Detroit today is designing automobiles for style, cost, performance and calculated obsolescence, but not--despite the 5,000,000 reported accidents, nearly 40,000 fatalities, 110,000 permanent disabilities and 1,500,000 injuries yearly--for safety."
In 1963, Nader, then an unknown twenty-nine-year old attorney, abandoned a conventional law practice in Hartford, Connecticut, and hitchhiked to Washington, DC, to begin a long odyssey of professional citizenship. "I had one suitcase," he recalled. "I stayed in the YMCA. Walked across a little street and had a hot dog, my last." (A few years later he would expose the repulsive ingredients that go into hot dogs.) He took a job as a consultant to the US Department of Labor, working for Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Nader moonlighted as a freelance writer for The Nation and The Christian Science Monitor. He also acted as an unpaid adviser to a Senate subcommittee which was exploring what role the federal government might play in auto safety.
In 1965, he targeted General Motors and the American auto industry in his best-selling book Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile . When GM attempted to discredit him, he sued them for invasion of privacy. This landmark case forced the president of GM to go before a Senate Committee and admit wrongdoing, and a series of safety laws were passed in 1966 which forced the auto industry to make drastic design changes for safer motor vehicles. With the money Nader won in the settlement, he launched the modern consumer movement.
The publicity he received, and the reputation he created for standing up to predatory corporations, inspired activists from around the nation to go to Washington, DC to work with Nader. They became known as "Nader’s Raiders." Organizations were launched to push for laws to protect people as consumers, workers and taxpayers, and the environment, combating corporate abuse, and increasing citizen access to government.
Ralph Nader and his Raiders have identified and confronted political and corporate bosses on hundreds of issues. They have fought against insurance companies; global trade arrangements that allow other countries to evade our environment, labor, and consumer protection laws; corporate lobbyists and politicians who attempt to block safety standards, or to deny fair access to court for injured parties.
In 1971, Nader founded Public Citizen, to be the consumers’ eyes and ears in Washington, working for consumer justice and government and corporate accountability. More than 150,000 people are involved in the six branches of Public Citizen: Congress Watch, Health Research Group, Litigation Group, Critical Mass Energy Project, Global Trade Watch and Buyers Up, which protect Americans from government and corporate power that threatens our well-being.
Congress Watch protects citizen interests before the US Congress. It works to strengthen protection of health, safety and the environment; demands an end to corporate subsidies; ensures citizens’ ability to address corporate wrongdoing; exposes money’s corruption in politics and advocates for campaign finance reform.
The Health Research Group works for safe foods, drugs and medical devices. It fights for consumer control over personal health decisions and universal access to quality health care. It promotes system-wide changes in health care policy, and advises and informs and the public about drugs and medical devices. The HRG has exposed the tobacco industry’s powerful influence in Washington, the failure of state medical boards to discipline incompetent doctors, and the excessively high rate of caesarean section deliveries.
The Litigation Group is the nation’s leading public interest law firm. Its attorneys bring precedent-setting lawsuits on behalf of citizens to protect health, safety and rights of consumers.
The Critical Mass Energy Project protects America’s natural resources and promotes safe, economical, environmentally sound energy use through conservation and renewable sources. This organization is a watchdog for nuclear safety issues, and stops the reckless disposal of radioactive waste.
Global Trade Watch educates the American public about the enormous impact of international trade and economic globalization on our jobs, the environment, public health and safety, and democratic accountability. GTW was created in 1993 to focus on an area few public interest groups covered: the international commercial agreements shaping the current version of globalization.
Buyers Up is a home heating oil cooperative group buying program that acts as an information resource on home energy and environmental issues. Its reports have yielded important data on the over-promotion of high-octane gasoline by the oil companies, and the failure of many states to ensure the quality of gasoline sold to consumers.
Nader’s organizations have been responsible for federal consumer protection laws such as the Safe Drinking Water Act. They have launched federal regulatory agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Environment Protection Agency (EPA), and Consumer Product Safety Administration. They’ve caused the recall of millions of defective motor vehicles, and created access to the government through the Freedom of Information Act of 1974.
Ralph Nader has written, co-written or sponsored many books, including Action for a Change, Corporate Power in America, Taming the Giant Corporation, Verdicts on Lawyers, The Menace of Atomic Energy, Who’s Poisoning America, Winning the Insurance Game, The Frugal Shopper. He has created trust, admiration and respect with his action, integrity, and commitment to the people.
Other groups he inspired include the Aviation Consumer Action Project, Center for Auto Safety, Clean Water Action Project, Disability Rights Center, Pension Rights Center, Freedom of Information Clearinghouse, and the Congressional Accountability Project. Nader helped establish the Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), the organizations funded and controlled by students that function on college campuses in 23 states. Their impact alone has been tremendous. The groups have published hundreds of ground-breaking reports and guides, lobbied for laws in their state legislatures, and called the media's attention to environmental and energy problems.
In November 1980, Nader resigned as director of Public Citizen in order to devote his energy toward other projects. The organization is now headed by Joan Claybrook, former head of Congress Watch and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Today he lectures on the growing "imperialism" of multinational corporations and of a dangerous convergence of corporate and government power. With the passage of autocratic trade treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the new General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the merger of corporate and government interests is escalating. A magazine founded by Nader in 1980, The Multinational Monitor, tracks the global intrusion of multinational corporations and their impact on developing nations, labor, and the environment.
Nader has focused his efforts on empowering citizens to create a responsive government sensitive to citizens' needs. The top of his agenda has been defending the US civil justice system. Corporate lobbyists and certain legislators have worked on both the federal and state levels to limit consumers' rights to seek justice in court in the areas of product liability, securities fraud, and medical negligence. Nader recently co-authored a book on corporate lawyers and the perils of the legal system entitled No Contest.
The Savings and Loan bailout is also a large concern of his: the de-regulation of the banking industry in the early 1980s led to speculative real estate deals which taxpayers must now finance. This is one of many examples of corporate subsidies taxpayers finance through a system Nader calls "corporate welfare." He is an advocate of insurance reform including loss-prevention activity and insurance consumer education. He co-authored the book Winning the Insurance Game, and has been working with consumer activists in Massachusetts and California on lowering the cost and raising the coverage of automobile and health insurance in those states.
Nader is un-intimidated by the deregulations posed by the Reagan and Bush administrations and perpetuated by Clinton. He says, "You've got to keep the pressure on, even if you lose. The essence of the citizen's movement is persistence." When asked to define himself, he always responds, "Full-time citizen, the most important office in America for anyone to achieve."
Ralph Nader is one of America's most effective social critics. He has been called Muckraker, Consumer Crusader, and Public Defender. His documented criticism of government and industry has had widespread effect on public awareness and bureaucratic power. Time magazine called him "US's toughest customer." His inspiration and example have awakened consumer advocates, citizen activists, and public interest lawyers who have established more public awareness organizations throughout the country.
Nader's original research organization is the Washington, DC-based Center for Study of Responsive Law. Since 1969, the Center has produced innumerable reports on wide-ranging subjects such as the Interstate Commerce Commission, food safety, pensions, corporate welfare, and government procurement.
His impact on the American political system is tremendous. As former US Senator James Abourezk observed, "For the first time in US history, a movement exists whose sole purpose is to keep large corporations and the government honest."
Related links: Public Citizen for a more comprehensive overview of all six branches, and details of their victories and actions. A more complete biography of Ralph Nader may be seen at: www.nader.org/history