ABSTRACT
The introduction presents an overview of some key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights critical junctures in our political economy and labor relations when events such as merger waves, war, government expansion, labor strikes, economic growth, and economic depression engendered challenges to the large corporation that threatened to shift the balance of power between government and business on the one hand, and unions and employers on the other. It explains the story of the rise and fall of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the twentieth century. The book explores the Great Depression and World War II. It attempts to reengage the debate concerning large corporations by exploring how best to re-tether them to larger social purposes. Conventional wisdom points the finger at global competition as the cause of the decline in this twentieth-century form of CSR.
