ABSTRACT
The two main parts of my 1946 book, Concept of the Corporation (a study of General Motors—GM—then, as now, the world’s largest manufacturing company), were titled respectively “The Corporation as Human Effort” and “The Corporation as a Social Institution.” Fifty-five years ago these titles were shockers—meant to be as such and seen as such. Within GM the entire book was extremely controversial, was indeed considered by many GM executives to be ultra-critical if not downright hostile. But even the book’s defenders within the company found it hard to accept these two titles and what they implied. And outside of GM they were almost universally rejected—by economists as much as by social and political scientists. Everybody “knew” that a business could be seen and analyzed only in terms of economics. That view has still by no means disappeared—it is strongly held, for instance, by America’s premier economist, Milton Friedman. But no one today would be very much surprised—let alone shocked—by these two titles. They have become truisms.
