ABSTRACT
The debate about corporate power has tended to polarise around two theoretical perspectives. One, the pluralist view, argues that business is an interest group competing with other interests for access to decision makers in a relatively open political framework. In this view, business pursues its economic objectives but also reacts to social pressures for control over its activities exerted by the interests of consumers, labour and the environment. Strategies of cooperation, concession and compromise are arbitrated through a responsive, representative and democratic policy which engages in consultation with the interests involved, promoting policies which seek to balance economic, social and technological factors. The other view, the political economy perspective, defines business as a dominant force engaged in the control of large sectors of economic and political life. Business is ‘not simply another interest group: its role [is] actually more akin to that of a ruling class or dominant elite’ (Vogel, 1981, pp. 1–2). Business power is all pervasive, controlling the nation’s technology, pattern of work organisation, location of industry, market structure, resource allocation and income distribution. Business is able to penetrate all levels of political decision making and, by strategies of manipulation, information control and sanctions, is able to define the political agenda and resist controls or financial penalties that threaten its continued prosperity.
