ABSTRACT
This chapter examines corporate size and the bailout factor. It analyzes direct government bailouts, such as those involving Lockheed and Chrysler. The chapter argues that bailouts of giant firms occur in a variety of other indirect, but equally potent ways, including protection from foreign competition, regulatory delays and dispensations, privileged government procurement practices, state-sponsored promotion, tax favors, and exemption from prosecution for illegal acts and practices. Direct government bailouts of bigness occur when government rescues failing corporate giants through direct cash infusions or financial credit and loan guarantees. Government protection of large corporations from foreign competition constitutes a second genus of bailouts for bigness. As an alternative to meeting foreign competition in the market place, Big Steel sought a bailout through government protection. Their size, they have discovered, provides a potent instrument for extracting regulatory bailouts. The corporate giants can obtain bailouts in the form of regulatory delays and dispensations.
