On the Rationale of the Corporate System

Abstract

What are the connotations of the phrase ‘The Corporate System’? In the minds of the other contributors to this volume they seem to be coterminous with those of J. K. Galbraith’s thesis of the two hundred or so giant corporations now said to dominate the private sector of American business and industry. By so doing, by increasing their control of markets and, eventually, of consumer behaviour, and by constraining governments to safeguard their interests (which are made more and more to appear to coincide with the interests of the nation), they have come to occupy a central place in the contemporary social and political order of advanced industrial societies. Furthermore, the corporate system is increasingly making itself felt as an international political presence.