ABSTRACT
One of the difficulties in writing about the corporation and society is that for so many readers the subject appears hopelessly dull, about as exciting as Latin irregular verbs. Through all the rough and tumble, its champions have taken a remarkably constant view of the corporation and society throughout the corporate era. For a start, like the populists, they, too, believe that the institutions and practices of private property are fundamental to the good or liberal society. Formal democracies like the Philippines and, say, El Salvador, use democratic trappings to hide the fact that only a small part of the population holds real power. In contrast, a free-market capitalism allows innumerable people to enjoy economic power and wealth, and this in turn guarantees that the formal democratic political system will work equitably. The "liberal society" is a society based on private property and capitalism whose economic success provides the basis for pluralist democratic government.
