ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews sociological debates concerning the nature of corporate control and the performance of large capitalist firms. It discusses the structural relationships between the firm and managers, stockholders, and financial institutions, and how these relationships influence corporate performance. Class cohesion theorists argue that managers in the largest corporations are not autonomous, but are constrained to maximize profits. A number of positive and negative incentives are built into the structure of the large corporation and its environment to encourage managers of management-controlled firms to be as concerned as the stockholders about the firm’s profit rate. The chapter explores a structural analysis of credit in advanced capitalist societies, focusing on the functions and consequences of capitalist credit systems. The credit system performs two interrelated functions in capitalist societies: it serves as an intermediary between savers and borrowers, and it becomes a mechanism for increasing the turnover rate of capital.
