Orts, Eric W

English

Kosmopolis

Book Review: Bowman\u27s \u27The Modern Corporation and American Political Thought\u27

ScholarlyCommons@Penn

University of PennsylvaniaScholarlyCommonsLegal Studies and Business Ethics Papers Wharton Faculty Research3-1997Book Review: Bowman's 'The ModernCorporation and American Political Thought'Eric W. OrtsUniversity of PennsylvaniaFollow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/lgst_papersPart of the Business Commons, and the Law CommonsThis paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/lgst_papers/9For more information, please contact repository@pobox.upenn.edu.Recommended CitationOrts, E. W. (1997). Book Review: Bowman's 'The Modern Corporation and American Political Thought'. American Journal ofSociology, 102 (5), 1447-1448. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/231092Book Review: Bowman's 'The Modern Corporation and AmericanPolitical Thought'DisciplinesBusiness | LawThis review is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/lgst_papers/9Book ReviewsThe Modern Corporation and American Political Thought: Law, Power,and Ideology. By Scott R. Bowman. University Park: Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press, 1996. Pp. ix1436. $55.00 (cloth); $15.95 (paper).Eric W. OrtsUniversity of PennsylvaniaThis book addresses an important topic that deserves careful consider-ation by political theorists, legal academics, and other social scientists.The rise of large business corporations counts as one of the most impor-tant organizational transitions of the 20th century. The Modern Corpora-tion and American Political Thought aims to make sense of this transitionby proposing “a political theory of the corporation” (pp. 15, 237–38, 284).This project is worthy, but the book fails to deliver completely on itsambitious promise. It is well researched but unevenly edited and lackingin thematic coherence. Scholars working in the field will nevertheless findaspects of this work useful, especially its rich collection of sources givenin the text and extensive footnotes.The book first outlines the uncontroversial proposition that large cor-porations have become very influential in our society. It then attemptsto place this social development of large corporations in the context ofpolitical theories of liberalism. Again, the topic is an important one, butmy guess is that most political theorists will not find that this book ad-vances their understanding of the relationship between business corpora-tions and political liberalism much beyond previous treatments, such asthe one by Robert Dahl (A Preface to Economic Democracy [Universityof California Press, 1985]).Most useful is the author’s straightforward and clear discussion of theprimary texts of six significant American critics of the business corpora-tion, most of whom may be correctly labeled “progressive.” The first threeare in fact early-20th-century political progressives: Herbert Croly, Wal-ter Weyl, and Thorstein Veblen. The book provides a very useful servicein reminding us that these early critics have much to say about businesscorporations and their influence in society that remains relevant andthought provoking. Their basic message is that society as a whole andits political system must take the phenomenon of large corporations seri-ously and regulate some aspects of their structure and behavior for thegeneral welfare. The second trio—Adolf A. Berle, Peter F. Drucker, andJohn Kenneth Galbraith—appears later in the 20th century. The author’schoice of these figures provides a helpful, if somewhat eclectic, focus forthe contemporary study of the influence of business corporations in soci-ety. Berle in particular, who is the only legal academic among the group,deserves close attention. The author reminds us of Berle’s important con-tributions to the understanding of the social issues of “corporate power”(p. 203).Unlike Berle, however, the author does not bring the same level of1447This content downloaded from 165.123.155.005 on July 25, 2017 08:21:30 AMAll use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).American Journal of Sociologylegal sophistication to the task of understanding the nature of businesscorporations. He focuses on the difference between “internal” corporategovernance and “external” regulation of corporations (e.g., pp. 11–12).But this distinction is not new, and the author does little to add to itscritical potential. In addition, his analysis of both internal and externalaspects of the corporation omits some major developments. The analysisof internal corporate governance, for example, ignores the significantchange in corporate culture occasioned by the rise of large and powerfulinstitutional investors. On external matters, the author spends a greatdeal of time on antitrust regulation and the first amendment rights ofbusiness corporations but omits any mention of the development of fed-eral securities law. These oversights undermine the author’s broaderclaim to lay an interdisciplinary foundation for a new political theory ofthe business corporation.The most significant substantive weakness of the book lies in its reli-ance on the idea of “corporate power” without stopping to analyze clearlywhat this term means (pp. 1–5, 14–27). The author says repeatedly, andaccurately, that the legal form of the corporation is pervasive. But theauthor’s relatively unreconstructed Marxian class analysis does little toadvance our understanding of this important social phenomenon.Still, scholars interested in the important and complex topic of corpo-rate governance will wish to consult this book, as well as other recenttreatments of the political dimension of business corporations given byJ. E. Parkinson (Corporate Power and Responsibility: Issues in the The-ory of Company Law [Clarendon Press, 1993]) and Mark Roe (StrongManagers, Weak Owners: The Political Roots of American Corporate Fi-nance [Princeton University Press, 1994]). The book points the way to-ward new directions in interdisciplinary research, but it leaves the taskof building an adequate political and social theory of business corpora-tions to future scholars who will find this work a helpful resource fromwhich to draw.Constitutive Criminology: Beyond Postmodernism. By Stuart Henry andDragan Milovanovic. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1996.Pp. 288. $79.95 (cloth); $26.95 (paper).Mark ColvinGeorge Mason UniversityHenry and Milovanovic develop their “constitutive” theory of criminol-ogy by critiquing modernist thought and drawing upon some recent post-modernist conceptions. The authors reject the nihilism, subjectivism,despair, and anarchy of knowledge that pervade “skeptical” post-modernism. While they view deconstruction as an important analytictechnique and an essential component of social change, they reject post-modernism’s obsession with deconstructionism. Instead, they point to-1448This content downloaded from 165.123.155.005 on July 25, 2017 08:21:30 AMAll use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).

https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&amp;context=lgst_papers

Book Review: Bowman\u27s \u27The Modern Corporation and American Political Thought\u27

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Kosmopolis

ScholarlyCommons@Penn