ABSTRACT
This chapter argues two basic components of the corporate theory of society: the non-political nature of management decision-making and the autonomy and objectivity of market forces. It identifies three more specific characteristics of this kind of policy decisionmaking process. The first is that the measures that are eventually taken will involve a trade-off between pragmatic/technical and political-ethical factors. The second characteristic is that the trade-off involved in determining the measures to be taken cannot be represented as a negotiation. The third characteristic is that the experts involved in the decision-making process can only have an advisory role. The chapter suggests that the insights of institutional economics provide invaluable resources for the construction of a critique of the corporate theory of society. It argues that in order properly to understand the relation between the micro- and macro-social processes of the economy. The chapter combines the insights with the more general approach of critical social theory.
