ABSTRACT
An alternative story that explains the growth and consequences of large firms has long been told by economists in sub-disciplines that lie outside of the mainstream of economic theory. Because there has not been a shared terminology among all who have told it, it has been a fragmented story, one in which the common elements were not always clearly recognized as such. In this chapter, the accounts of several writers who may at first glance appear to be unlikely bedfellows indeed will be pieced together in an alternative account against which, in Chapter 6, both the popular stories of Standard Oil and Wal-Mart recounted in Chapter 3, as well as the economic theories that have been spun off those stories in Chapter 4, will be compared. The authors of the alternative account include, among others, Thorstein Veblen, best known as the acerbic author of The Theory of the Leisure Class; Bela Gold, an economist who trained first as an industrial engineer; the business and economic historian Alfred Chandler, who remade the field of business history; Armen Alchian, a widely respected economic theorist associated with the Chicago School; and Ronald Coase, also a member of the Chicago School, who is generally credited with being one of the major creators of transaction cost theory.
