ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the complex issue of the control of corporate power, with some special reference to multinational companies. It explores the impact of automation upon work and employment and the implications of the shift to service employment. The book focuses on the Soviet Union and then to Japan, the two pre-eminent nations to industrialise in the twentieth century. Customarily, economists ignore the political and social context of economic behaviour, while non-economists concern themselves with this context, leaving scrutiny of economic behaviour to the specialists. Although the social system of the USSR is frequently thought of as alien, because characterised as Communist or despotic or both, all the ideas upon which it is based are of European origin and Russia, shared its earlier phases of social and economic development with the remainder of Europe.
