Managers United for Corporate Rivalry: A History of Managerial Collective Action

Abstract

Students of American corporate political behavior have long asked whether or not the corporate sector acts collectively to influence the public policy process. Corporate concentration of wealth in the late nineteenth century first suggested particular business interests enjoyed a privileged political position. After World War II American pluralists, while conceding that economic concentration posed a threat to democracy, noted that economic concentration could not be translated into political privilege without a high degree of corporate political unity. In this respect, they reasoned that big business was unlikely to engage in collective action because of the divisive nature of economic competition. For a long while, this optimism about the market's policing powers assuaged most fears of corporate political domination, even though several scholars offered contrary evidence. The recent corporate political mobilization, however, has renewed the debate on corporate political unity.